Into the Black (Gays in Space)
by thedeadflag
Summary: Clarke is a spoiled daughter to influential parents in the Navy, being forced into service against her wishes. Anya is an aspiring pilot with no tolerance for nepotism, leading to the two butting heads through their three years at Ark Naval Academy When the ship they're on comes under attack en route to a navy r&d lab, they have to band together to survive.
1. Chapter 1

Professor Sinclair stood at the podium in front of the recruits, everyone packed into rows of theater seating, most of them itching to go home and celebrate upcoming graduation or the scheduled time off their group had coming up.

Clarke? Well, she just wanted to go to her real home and spend the next few weeks partying and painting, far away from the Ark Naval Academy's campus. Each term that passed, Clarke grew exponentially more confident that she had little interest in the lives her mother and father led. Art had always been her calling.

However, she'd have nothing if she dropped out. Her mom and dad set up a small trust fund for her that she could only gain access to after graduating from the academy and putting the standard three entry-level years in of service with the navy. She was a year from graduating, meaning four years from freedom.

A long wait, and Clarke wasn't patient in the least, but Mars wasn't Earth. There weren't spare jobs on mars. There weren't coursing rivers and glorious mountain ranges, there weren't forests filled with life. If you were homeless on Mars, they'd ship you off to a mining colony, and Clarke wouldn't put it past her mother to let them take her to one if she dropped out early to pursue her dream.

And so she sat, waiting for Sinclair to dismiss them for the term. They'd completed their finals the previous day, there wasn't anything left but Sinclair giving another spiel and announcing the shortlist for the absurd trip to the R&D lab on Ceres. A four week academy-guided trip during their six weeks of freedom; whoever not only wanted to waste time on that, but pay for it, was an idiot.

"Hey, pay attention, Sinclair's about to give the list." Raven noted from beside her after jabbing Clarke's ribs a bit. And okay, Raven had an excuse to be excited; it was likely she'd get work on Ceres after she graduated next week, so her skipping the ceremony to display her talents and win a job made sense.

"Whatever. I hope for your sake that the trip's eventful." Clarke whispered back as Sinclair went on about how impressed he was with the 'tenacity' of the group of recruits before him.

"Aww, I'll miss you, too, Griff." Raven teased, bumping shoulders with her just before perking up in her seat as Sinclair changed the year-end presentation to one detailing the upcoming trip.

"And now for what a lot of you were waiting for. I know you want to use your free time as effectively as possible, so I'll stop droning on and cut to the chase. I got word this afternoon that the departure date for the trip will be in two days, on the SSV Polaris. Twenty-three of you made the shortlist, so you should have enough time to pack and prepare yourself for the next few weeks." Sinclair rambled, and it was all Clarke could do not to fall asleep. Instead, she merely tilted her head back and closed her eyes, waiting for the merciful end to the festivities.

"Trips like these are rare, so I hope all of you appreciate this opportunity. And for those of you who didn't apply, I hope you realize what you're missing out on." Sinclair continued, making it sound as if spending the next four weeks on a cramped Destroyer ship or in a cramped lab barracks would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. "So without further ado, here's the list of twenty-three. I wish them the best of luck on their voyage. To the rest of you, good luck, I hope to see some of you on Luna Base in the future."

 _Oh right, he's been transferred..._ Clarke started to remember, only for Raven to rattle her brain with a hard shake.

"Clarke, what the hell?! When did you sign up for the trip? You made me think I'd be missing out on you for ages!" Raven practically yelled, still shaking her vigorously.

It was then that Clarke opened her eyes and fixed them on the main screen, jaw dropping at the sight of her name right there on the list below Monty.

Her temper flared immediately, Clarke jumping up to her feet, eyes burning with rage as she glared at her name on the goddamn list. "I didn't apply! It's my goddamn parents, again!" She growled in Raven's direction, causing her friend to recoil just slightly. "I can't believe they did this to me!"

"Poor precious Princess, getting a free ticket to a trip that will probably fast track the lot of us up the ladder once we graduate." A familiar voice chimed in a row behind her and off to the side. Clarke didn't need to even turn her head to know it was Anya Birch. "I bet that put a real damper on your plans for the break. All that drinking and partying...god, what a terrible tragedy, having to go on an extra-credit trip for elite recruits instead."

Anya Birch was, to be frank, a massive bitch. The woman was cold and unyielding at the best of times, always seemed on edge and twitchy, and had a tendency to throw verbal jabs Clarke's way for no good reason. Clarke wasn't sure what she'd ever done to the other woman.

Clarke turned her head to face her antagonist. "I'd be careful leading up to the trip. With how much you play in dirt, and the dark circles under your eyes, someone might mistake you for a zombie. Seriously, have you never heard of concealer?"

Anya's cold facade didn't crack, but there was a fire burning in those brown eyes now. "Go cry to mommy and daddy, Griffin. I'm sure they'll get you out of the trip if you whine enough. It really is what you do best."

"Go float yourself, bitch! You're just jealous Clarke got in when you had to bust your balls to have a hope." Raven chimed in at her defense, not like she needed it. Still, Clarke appreciated the support at Anya's unwarranted attack.

"I know you're playing the game, Reyes. Leave the theatrics for a more opportune time...you're smarter than this." Anya shot back before slinking away, Clarke glaring the woman down until she disappeared out the door.

"I swear she gets more unstable every day. How the hell did she get into the stupid field trip, anyway?" Clarke asked as she packed up her things.

"Hey, it's not a field trip. That could be my next place of work." Raven chided her playfully. "But yeah, that girl's a mess. I don't know how she hopes to be a pilot."

Clarke let out a laugh, moving out to the aisle and up the stairs to the exit. "Maybe of an ice-hauler or a shitty space taxi."

Raven joined in her laughter and shook her head. "But seriously, though. Like, you need to pass drug tests to be a pilot, and I swear she's on something...meth or maybe that Zyntex shit? Something's fucked about her."

Clarke nodded, knowing that if there was a sketchy person in their course, it was Birch. Most recruits came in straight out of high school, but Anya was three years older than them, and no one could twist any details out about what the woman had been doing during the three year gap. "Yeah, she's really twitchy, like an addict. Hopefully she'll bomb out on the trip if she really is one, since she won't be able to get anything like that en route." Clarke continued, though the distraction Anya had provided was fading. "I just need to get home and figure out why the hell my parents slotted me in when I told them I wasn't going."

"Worst case, you can bunk with me. We can have an alright time on our way to Ceres." Raven suggested, and while Clarke was certain Raven could make good on that, she didn't like the idea of spending the rest of the trip without her friend once that lab scooped Raven up.

Whatever it was worth, she'd be giving her parents a hell of a talking to tonight.

* * *

Anya stormed her way to the LRT station out of town, still fuming over the turn of events in class. She'd spent three increasingly frustrating years in the academy with Clarke, used up nearly all her savings to afford the trip to Ceres, and had been looking forward to a vacation away from the princess of the fleet, hopefully networking her way into some future inroads down the line. After all, no matter the shortcuts and free passes Clarke got, the other blonde had been vocal about not going on the excursion.

Knowing that Griffin's parents managed to slot her in as the twenty-third spot, of the initial twenty-two person shortlist, was not only insulting but infuriating.

She just wanted to catch a goddamn break after all her years of hard work, and there was Clarke, waltzing into a prime opportunity she didn't even want, just because of who her parents were. It was a damn travesty.

Anya shook her head as she stepped onto the train and took her seat, hand gripping the nearby pole so hard her knuckles went white. _Four weeks with her...I swear, if I don't kill her, it'll be a miracle..._

Clarke was, to put it lightly, everything Anya hated, and mostly everything she wasn't. Clarke didn't even have to try in classes, constantly handed in assignments late and occasionally missed tests, and somehow the woman kept from being expelled, and inexplicably passed every class. Clarke went out almost every night to party or hang out with her rich and powerful friends from what Anya could tell, and had never worked a job in her life. Clarke didn't have to try for opportunities, or even ask; they were always just offered to her, and the other blonde never seemed thankful or grateful, or even seemed to recognize how absurdly rare and privileged that sort of experience was.

Anya, meanwhile, was punctual for everything, knowing that the last time she'd handed an assignment in late, and only twelve minutes late due to her home's transmitter being impacted by a massive dust storm between their dome and the academy, administration threatened to pull her scholarship and expel her. Anya knew that hammer would never come down on Clarke; unlike Griffin, her dad was an ice hauler, and her mother was a bartender over on Tethys station. It was a minor miracle she'd managed to finish her schooling and get enough certifications for the Academy to consider her.

Anya spent most of her free time working the fields of her local biodome, studying, refreshing, and remixing the fertilizer so that the area's crops would keep growing. What time she could manage after that, she spent on space-flight sims.

The trip to Ceres was supposed to be her vacation, where she'd recover, and learn, and network. She'd worked so goddamn hard to make it happen, and she'd been so proud when she saw her name on the list, but then Griffin ruined it.

Clarke Griffin ruined everything.

The train ride was shorter than usual, no storms to slow it down today, and soon enough she was walking up to the farmhouse's back entrance, making her way down the steps to the basement door. As with most early-settled prefabs, it was a bit of a shoddy building, and it took some work to get her door open as always, but she eventually got in.

The place wasn't much, but it was her home during her stay on Mars. Her mom's cousin's nephew's father owned the place, and was willing to rent it out a little cheaper than usual to her. Anya hadn't needed much, and the living space it provided was bigger than anything she'd grown up with, so she didn't complain. It had a bed, room for her sim set-up, a dresser, a toilet, a shower, and a microwave; compared to Tethys station, she was living in the lap of luxury. Having her own shower, even if it used a mist of cleansing particles instead of water, was glorious compared to the rations they were under back home. She only needed to wait a half a day for the shower to recycle the particles, not half a week or more.

Anya took off her boots and flopped down on her bed, smiling into her pillow at the comfort of being able to rest. She'd scheduled today and the entire rest of the break off work, leaving her a good long while to recuperate. It'd been so damn long since she'd truly slept, and Anya was going to do her best to get in as many hours as she could before departure.

One more year.

One more year and she'd graduate. She'd find work towards being a pilot, and she'd make her dream come true. One day, she'd be helming a frigate or corvette, she'd have a nice little place of her own to come back to that wasn't the basement of a prefab farmhouse, and maybe she'd even have a girlfriend or wife to share her life with, too.

Anya pulled at her blanket and nuzzled her pillow, trying to get comfy on her thin, lumpy mattress. It was good to dream, good to set goals for herself. It kept her motivated to get through what she had to do in order to find success, to build a better life for her family.

Nothing was going to get in her way.

* * *

The SSV Polaris wasn't the flagship of the navy, having aged out of that position, but it was still among the most fearsome ships Clarke had ever stepped foot on. Not that she'd wanted to be there, but her parents had insisted, and made certain that she couldn't say no, having rented out their home to a visiting Admiral and his family for the coming weeks, leaving Clarke essentially homeless otherwise.

The six hour trip to the Polaris had been an ordeal in itself with everyone crammed into a tiny transport. Thankfully, once they reached the destroyer, she, Raven, and Wells were pulled aside and brought to the bridge to see Captain Pike, who helped distract them for a few hours by showing them the ropes and having them shadow some of the crew as they started their journey towards Ceres.

That was how the past few days had been, everyone mostly spent shadowing other crew during sims or their regular duties, and then heading back to their bunks at the end of the day to write their reports and grab some sleep. It was boring, and tedious, and the only silver lining was that Anya spent all her time down in the lower decks running sims with a flight instructor or at the docks running sims on the gunships and transports. Their paths barely crossed during the past five cycles.

Sadly, she could say the same for Raven, who she'd barely seen since they arrived, spending most of her time with the top mechs on the destroyer and shadowing them. The whole excursion felt like a big 'take your kid to work day' and Clarke was halfway surprised finding herself yearning for whatever the lab would provide, thinking it couldn't be any more boring than the SSV Polaris and shadowing Captain Pike.

When she was finally dismissed by Pike, signaling the end of her sixth cycle on the ship, Clarke made her way to the mess hall instead of the barracks, knowing she'd been let go a little early, giving her time to grab a snack.

To her surprise, Monty and Wells were at one of the tables, making her destination after grabbing a muffin an easy decision. One blueberry muffin later, she plopped down beside Wells and let out a relieved huff, happy for her day to be over. "Hey guys, please tell me your days have been better than mine."

Wells just turned his head and grinned. "Pike not your style?"

"He does a lot of paperwork, and stands around the rest of the time. I'm bored out of my mind." Clarke explained, knowing that the man got his rank for a reason, but that he didn't have much to do while ferrying a bunch of students to Ceres. "I'd kill to be down in the med bay. At least I'd be able to do _something_."

"Says the woman who didn't want to be here and doesn't like the work." Monty joked, but while he had a point, he was a little off the mark.

"I can't just hang out here. There's no art supplies, no music, no movies, no alcohol, no dancing...I'm tired of looking over Pike's shoulder while he does paperwork, or just standing around on the bridge." Clarke retorted, earning nods from her friends.

"Well, maybe you can ask him tomorrow to switch up. I know Lincoln's been down in the med bay, he's cool." Monty added with a hopeful smile.

Clarke searched her memory, knowing the name was familiar. It took a few moments for it to click. "The tall broody muscle-bound guy that doesn't talk? Who hangs out with Anya Birch? No thanks."

"He's a good guy. And really, if you're bored on the bridge, then you'd have a much better time down there. Every time I passed by, they were running Lincoln through drills." Wells said, bumping shoulders with Clarke. "If nothing else, it'd pass time a lot faster than standing around doing nothing."

She could admit that Wells had a point, even if she wasn't a fan of spending time with a friend of Anya's. The man was years older than all of them, including even Anya. Something just seemed off about him. Still, he'd never been real vocal, and if she'd be doing drills and exercises throughout her time there, then it'd probably be fine.

"Okay, I guess I'll give it a shot." Clarke conceded before taking a bite out of her muffin. It wasn't very tasty, but it was something. "Anyway, I was serious before. How have things been for you two?"

Wells shrugged. "I was kind of miffed when Pike decided to send me to the comms section at the back end of the bridge, I figured it was because he and dad have butted heads a lot. But from what you're telling me, I dodged a bullet. It's been fun, and I've been learning a lot about the systems, and how they do what they do."

"There's nothing agricultural here on the ship, so I've been working with some of the engineers, learning their protocols firsthand and how to work with their systems. In class, most of what we've been taught was on outdated tech and systems, so it's nice to be on something relatively current and learning how to adapt what I know to what they have." Monty added, both of her friends making her envious with how much they've been enjoying the experience.

"Well, I guess we should try and enjoy what we can while we can. We'll be at the lab about a cycle from now." Clarke said, wondering what it'd be like at the lab compared to the ship. Hopefully larger barracks, for one, and maybe better food.

"One last day...let's make the most of it." Wells agreed, toasting his glass of water against Monty's, and then against Clarke's half-eaten muffin.

 _Yeah, maybe it'll be a good day tomorrow..._ Clarke thought, smiling at the hope blooming within her. After all, how could it get any worse than it'd already been?

* * *

Anya let out a long exhale as she sat back in the pilot's seat, needing a moment to dump enough of the adrenaline coursing through her after the last sim.

"Damn good for a recruit, rookie." The lieutenant called out, clapping his hands twice from whatever amusement he took from running the sim with her. "You honestly might be better than two of the ensigns I have on crew here."

"Thank you, sir. I doubt that, though." Anya stated out of habit, though she felt good about the compliment anyway. It was hard to imagine a well trained pilot hand-picked by a destroyer-class vessel could be worse than her when her official pilot training had been minimal, even if she ran sims every day and had some flight experience with civilian vessels. She could gain a lot being self-taught, but it would never replace a quality instructor.

"Doubt me all you like. And I told you, call me Gustus. Captain assigned me to you, and you're still technically a civilian, so I'm as close to being off the clock as I can get." The man shot back with a grin, forcing Anya to roll her eyes.

Gustus' desire to deviate from the standard conventions did make a slight bit of sense, him being one of four Lieutenant Forresters onboard the Polaris, which had to have been a serious headache to deal with. Still, Anya didn't want to do or say anything that could hurt her career prospects.

"Besides, rookie, you're long overdue for some rack time. I'm sure your peers have been sleeping for the past two or three hours." Gustus continued, and Anya couldn't hold back her scoff if she tried.

Still, he had a point. She had plenty of time to run sims with a teacher like him. "Maybe. Yeah, sure."

"Good. Can't have you burning out on us." Gustus noted, as if Anya could. Spending nineteen hours awake at a time was practically a vacation compared to how it'd been during the term.

It only took a few minutes to lock up the gunship and head out of the docks, Anya waving farewell to Gustus as he got off a few floors earlier to head to the mess. Anya took the elevator another three levels to the starboard barracks, where she and the other students had been stashed away.

Thankfully, she wasn't the only one awake; Lincoln was leaning up against the entrance to their bunks, fiddling away with something on his tablet. "I hope you didn't wait up for a kiss goodnight, Linc."

The man's attention swiveled away from his tablet as he let out a sharp laugh. "Not so much." He said before gesturing to his tablet. "Studying. It's too uncomfortable to read in there."

"Mmmh. Yeah, it's weird going from having a bed to basically sleeping in a tiny coffin-sized bunk." Anya agreed, having felt more than a little claustrophobic in the pod-like lodgings. She made do, but Anya had honestly never thought she'd see a sleeping quarters smaller than her old one on Tethys, which had about two inches more vertical clearance than the bunks on the Polaris. Given the size of the ship, it didn't make much sense for them to be so tiny when there was wasted space everywhere else.

Lincoln's mouth opened to speak, but whatever he wanted to say died in his throat as the lights around them went blue and a dull alarm sounded, repeating after a second or two. Anya gulped, knowing the rest of her class was likely asleep. "Strange time for a drill."

A second later, a sound she'd only heard in her sims echoed through the hall. "Not a drill. Torpedoes" Lincoln said lowly, beating her to the punch. His eyes widened for a moment in a clear mix of fear and confusion, leaving Anya wondering what the fuck she'd missed, being down in the docks for hours. "Who'd have the brass to go after a destroyer with a naval base full of backup a few hours away?"

Lincoln voiced the question just as it popped into Anya's thoughts, leaving her entirely unsettled about what was happening. The Polaris was on a sluggish joy ride to Ceres; if backup launched now at full burn, they could reach the destroyer within three hours depending on the vessel. Whoever was attacking was either both desperate and stupid, or had an ace up their sleeve.

Anya hoped to hell that it wasn't the latter. "The Polaris isn't so old its radar's fucked, whatever's out there had to surprise them, or the folks shadowing on the bridge would have talked about something popping up on the scanners earlier. The defensive perimeter for a ship like this is huge, but we're deep in the belt by now. Lots of ways to spoof radar with the right surroundings and equipment."

"Still, they have to know they're screwed." Lincoln said with a shake of his head, shooting the walls a disbelieving stare. "God that's what, eighteen torpedo volleys? Twenty now? Twen...fuck, what the _hell_ is out there?"

Every fiber of Anya's body was telling her to run, instincts that she ignored for the moment. Damn it, she _hated_ running away. "We need to get everyone up. Just in case." She stated reluctantly before marching to the nearest double bunk door and pounding on it with one fist, and pressing the comm alert button with the other, trying to distract herself from the feeling that the walls were closing in on her. "Get up, fuckers, we're at general quarters!"

She only waited a second before moving to the second door, Lincoln catching on and taking the next. Anya pressed the comms again. "General quarters, people! Get up! This is not a damn drill!"

Before she could step away, the door was opening, and Clarke was stumbling out all bleary-eyed. "What the fuck, Anya?"

"Polaris just launched thirty two torps by my estimate, meaning this is for real. Something's out there, and..." Anya started, jaw clamping shut when Clarke let out a scoff and went to turn back towards the bunks. Before she knew what she was doing, Anya had swung Clarke around and had her pressed up against the corridor wall. "I don't think you understand the _gravity_ of this, _Princess_. They'd fire a half dozen to a dozen torpedoes to blow a bunch of low-tech pirates into the stone age. You don't throw out more than that unless you're worried or being swarmed, so _wake up_!"

"Hey, ease up on her!" Raven yelled, pulling Anya away with a lot less force than Anya knew the woman was capable of. It was enough to keep her from retaliating as she took two steps away. "Look, this ship's understaffed a bit, but we're in good hands. And I'm sure Ceres has backup en route, okay?"."

"Raven's right, there's no reason to panic." Wells stated firmly, having been woken by Lincoln, apparently. "And we were told that in case of emergency, we're to stay here. So we're _staying here_."

Anya cast her gaze around at the growing crowd of students and grit her teeth. One glance at Lincoln had her knowing the big lug wasn't comfortable with the plan of action either.

One thing was for certain, Anya never went into a problem without a few backup plans. _Now, what do I know about this big tin can of ours...and what could anyone want with it?_

* * *

Clarke only needed six minutes to start pacing. After all the days trapped on the bridge with Pike, she knew very well that the Polaris had a large defensive perimeter, and that the time for a torpedo to travel from the ship to the edge of that perimeter was thirty-seven minutes.

 _And what...two, three minutes after they fired, Anya woke me up? And then a few minutes of arguing...maybe thirteen or fourteen minutes in. Maybe..._ Clarke mused, trying to think, but every cell in her body was bracing for impact. Which didn't make any sense, but for the first time in her life, Anya was making sense.

And that alone had Clarke feeling like the apocalypse was about to rain down on them all.

For the past four minutes, Anya and Lincoln had been standing close together, whispering to each other, clearly cooking something up. Despite the duo's sketchiness, she wanted in. Wells had always been by the book, and that served him well in most things, but a space battle just didn't seem the time or place for following orders that left them without an exit strategy if things went awry.

As gracefully and inconspicuously as she could, Clarke pulled Raven aside. "You've been working with the mechs, right? They've had you doing repairs around the ship, right?"

Raven nodded, eyes narrowing with clear curiosity. "What are you up to, Griff?"

"You've probably looked over the ship's blueprints, then." Clarke stated, earning a slow nod from the mechanic. "Great. Is there any area of the ship that's safer than..."

Clarke's words died in her throat as a very different sound resonated throughout the room, Raven, Lincoln and Anya perking up in kind. "What the hell? That can't be right." Raven muttered.

Anya, however, marched directly over to Wells, grabbing hold of him just as the ship shook violently from one impact, then another, and another. "Those are the rail guns powering up. We're in CQB now, so it's time to get your head out of your ass, Wells!" The wiry woman yelled, shoving him backward into a group of other students. "Thirty two torps, and the Polaris didn't send them all to hell. Sixty-four PDCs on this bird and three of their torpedoes still made it through. Whoever they are, they're good, and they have this boat on its heels." Anya added as another two explosions rocked the Polaris and sent Clarke and others stumbling towards the wall. "Make that five."

"Captain Pike's orders were for us to remain _here_. I don't know about you but my first experience with the real Navy isn't about to be defying a direct order from a superior, Birch. Maybe people do things differently from where you come from, but where _I_ come from, we do as we're told." Wells shot back, appearing and sounding uncharacteristically angry as he stepped back into Anya's personal space. It wasn't often that Wells ever lost his cool.

Clarke took two long strides towards the group and separated the two, keeping them both at arm's length. "Look, I think we need to just cool off for a moment and figure things out. I know our orders were to stay here, but I'm not alone in saying that I'd like a backup plan in case something goes even more wrong."

"Clarke, this is a destroyer, they can handle..." Monty started to say before everything went dark, auxiliary lighting shifting on as the ship went silent. "...a few...pirates... _okay_ , so maybe I'm on board with a backup plan."

It was one thing to enter general quarters. It was an entirely different bowl of shit to actually get hit hard enough to lose power to the engines. "Lincoln, what's your plan?" She asked, deciding to bypass Anya entirely, figuring the man would be able to tell her anything her nemesis could.

Her question immediately had Anya growling, but Lincoln stepped closer anyways. "We make for the docks. Worst case scenario, we're boarded and we don't want to be stuck here in the barracks when that happens, we want to be in the docks before the raiders could set up and prevent evacuation. Better to stow away on a transport than to die or be taken prisoner here where we're easy pickings."

"There's a maintenance shaft that runs vertically through the ship, I think it reaches down to the top level of the docks. Could cut the travel time if the elevator's locked down like it probably is." Raven offered, giving exactly the kind of intel Clarke had hoped for.

"We'll need access to the main console down there, or the clamps will never unlatch from any of the ships there. I think with a bit of time, I might be able to hack in." Monty added quickly, sounding oddly excited.

"Guys, we're going to be..." Well started, but the multiple violent impacts against the hull of the Polaris killed whatever words he'd been planning on speaking.

Lincoln grabbed Anya's arm and leaned in, though despite his lowered voice, Clarke could still hear. "Those are breaching pods. Maybe ten minutes until they're in, so we need to go!" The man whispered harshly, earning a swift nod from the wiry woman.

The blood in Clarke's veins froze. Breaching pods meant soldiers. Soldiers meant gunfire. Gunfire meant wounds and casualties. _This is actually happening...shit shit shit SHIT!_

Anya immediately stepped towards the group, shrugging off Clarke's extended arm before she could react. "I'm leaving for the docks. Lincoln's with me. You all can stay here, or come with us."

Surprisingly, Raven's chin lifted, her mechanic friend stepping closer to Anya. "I'm in. Already graduated as of six hours ago. Not being where they asked me to be won't mess with my career prospects, and you two need me to get down there."

"Like I said, I can get you through their systems. Might be a tight window, but I know I can do it." Monty chimed in immediately afterward, making it two of Clarke's friends joining the duo's excursion.

Which, really, sealed the deal for Clarke. "You four could use another medic in case any of you get hurt. No offense, Lincoln, but I have more experience, and we could use all the help we can get."

It was an utter mess, and Clarke figured she'd regret it anyways, but if everything ended up well and she got expelled, she could hardly imagine her parents holding it against her, given the circumstances. Also, she had to keep her friends safe, and by joining up, she knew Wells would too, ensuring no one was left behind. Staying locked up in the barracks just really didn't seem like a good idea, not in the least. They'd be fish in a barrel, as her dad sometimes said.

"Then I'm coming, too." Wells said after an exasperated sigh, predictably making good on her assumption. "Anyone else?"

The rest of the group remained still, but Murphy cast his gaze across the group. "Not gonna risk expulsion after three hard years at the Ark. You losers can do what you want, but I'm staying."

Anya didn't wait to hear the murmured agreements from much of the rest of the crowd, charging past their peers and to the door, Lincoln in tow. Rolling her eyes, Clarke rushed after the duo, the rest of their impromptu group following. "You don't even know where you're going!"

"Well _they're_ not going to give us the damn courtesy of waiting, so let's go!" Anya yelled, grabbing a spacesuit from the barracks storage and quickly slipping into it.

Clarke followed suit, hoping that whatever was happening was just a bit of bad luck, and that it'd clear up quickly.

She didn't want to think about ways it could get worse.

* * *

The moment Anya dropped down from the service ladder to the upper level walkway of the docks, her stomach dropped. The power had kicked back on, and the two gunships had already left, leaving a solitary transport for the taking. She'd been desperately hoping for Nighthawk One or Two, but she'd be able to work with the Corvus in a pinch, hopefully.

She could hear the tools of the raiders clear as day as she made her way down the ladder in pursuit of Monty. She could see some of the ship's marines camped out in cover throughout the bay, waiting for the intrusion, but if Anya had to guess, they'd be outgunned and outnumbered. There was no use in supporting a plan that would only delay the inevitable.

Her feet hit the metal of the next walkway when the first loud crash sounded, gunfire immediately following. Anya shook her head as her heart thudded heavily in her chest and kept descending, knowing she had to keep from thinking about it, keep from worrying about it, keep from fearing what those weapons could do to her. Her father always said to keep her eye on the escape route and nothing else if raiders ever came down on her.

Of course, that was back when she'd been hauling ice or various other contraband, but that lesson still held true. She couldn't control her environment, but she could control her actions leading to her escape.

Two more crashes reverberated through the docks by the time she reached the final walkway before the main level, and Anya practically slid down the last railing in hot pursuit of Monty, knowing the transport had a small armory near the airlock. If she could make it in the ship, she could get weapons to defend it. If they could defend it long enough for Monty to hack the clamps free, they'd be clear.

Inexplicably, Clarke's voice came across their closed comms before she could lift a hand to her wrist. "Raven, Lincoln, Anya, you three and Wells head to the ship. I'll cover Monty!" The other blonde yelled out.

Honestly, it seemed like a ridiculous plan, but Anya wasn't deterred or upset, figuring her plan would have swapped Clarke with Lincoln. Having someone strong to carry any wounded to the ship had to take priority over defending the bay; for whatever it was worth, Clarke seemed to think up something halfway decent for once.

The second her feet hit the ground, she was off at a run towards the docking bridge to the Corvus. Gustus had punched the entry code in earlier that day, and she'd been paying attention, so that much was easy.

When a bullet grazed her right side and sent her tumbling to the ground and twisting her ankle, moving all of a sudden became a more difficult task. In the moment, with pain searing through her body, she almost forgot about Lincoln.

Key word being almost, the man swiftly picking her up and tossing her over his shoulder in one swift motion, barely breaking stride as he dashed down the long bridge to the transport.

Anya watched as two more breaches opened up behind them, bringing a hail of gunfire with them. She watched Clarke rush over to a fallen marine and take his gun, strafing from cover to cover, firing brief bursts to draw attention away from the engineer who was halfway huddled behind the console as a defense, connecting his personal table to it as a remote access of some sort. She watched a bullet shred through Well's leg, sending the prodigal son crashing down against the bridge.

"Drop me here, and go rescue Wells! I'll be fine to get the door!" Anya yelled out over their closed comms, Lincoln only barely hesitating at the order.

The man was a former soldier, so Anya trusted him to get the job done. All she had to do was stagger her way down the last fifteen feet of the docking bridge and punch in the code, and she'd have done her part.

Each step was painful. For a largely superficial wound, every stumble forward took a lot out of her. _Fuck, at this rate, I'll absolutely HAVE to stim up after takeoff...goddamn it..._ She cursed internally as she took another step, and then another, hobbling closer as gunfire erupted against the walkway around her and the hull of the Corvus, letting her know the marines had been dealt with, and the raiders were trying to contain them.

Anya stumbled into the ship's outer console just as the docking clamps released. Monty, it seemed, was in fact a miracle worker. She quickly typed in the sixteen character entry code and used all of her energy to lunge through the airlock, rushing into the cargo bay to the weapons lockers.

The inconveniently locked weapons lockers. "Fucking goddamn it!" She yelled, tugging at one of the doors and growling at the fact that it wasn't opening. "Weapons lockers are restricted, you all need to get in here right now! I'll start up the ship!"

If running across the bridge with a bullet wound was painful, climbing the two flights of stairs to the upper deck was excruciating. By the time she cast her eyes on the cockpit, she was practically crawling on her hands and knees, but she had her plan. She had her escape route.

She knew what she had to do, and she'd damn well do it.

Anya willed herself to the lead pilot's chair and tapped in the code Gustus used to start up the engines. She could only hope the others would make it.

* * *

Everything was exploding.

The pillar beside her, the console Monty just finished hacking, the railing of the docking bridge, the final marine on their level of the dock after a well-placed grenade, the hull of the ship, the heart in her chest.

Everything was exploding, and Clarke could hardly think as she fired a spray of bullets at the raiders that had moved into cover to flank their retreat. "Monty, you need to finish up now!"

"One second!" Her friend yelled in return, as Clarke darted over to another column and ransacked a dead marine's corpse, needing something, anything that could help. She'd only taken two courses in combat training, but when she palmed one grenade, and pocketed the other, she knew she at least had some options. She swapped rifles and peeked out from cover, narrowly avoiding a hail of bullets.

For a brief moment, she felt like she could stay there a few seconds longer, but when she saw Wells get gunned down on the bridge, her legs began moving without her permission.

Clarke set the timer and tossed her grenade as she darted from cover to cover as fast as her mag boots would allow, feeling the impact of a round going through the side of the suit's backpack as she let out another spray of bullets at the raiders.

Wells was laid out on the bridge, leg busted to all hell. She watched Lincoln practically throw Anya to the ground and rush back for him. Whatever it was worth, Lincoln was what Raven would call a 'brave sonovabitch'. The same Raven who hobbled past Wells towards the ship.

The explosion from her grenade was smaller than she'd hoped, but it still sent two of the raiders flying out of cover from the force of it. Even with her lack of training, it wasn't hard to fill one of them with lead by the time she reached cover.

The sound of the clamps unlatching had Clarke grinning, feeling like they might have a chance. "Stay low, Monty!" She yelled out as she shot another burst at the invaders, giving Monty a running head-start as she pulled out her other grenade and set a shorter timer.

Clarke tossed it towards cover and immediately turned around to make a run for it, knowing there'd be nothing to hide behind the rest of the way. Bullets flew by her grazing through her suit, impacting against the hard rear shell of her backpack, acting as makeshift body armor.

Lincoln was a machine dragging Wells and Monty to the ship's entrance and throwing them inside. As soon as he turned, Clarke's arms shot out, tossing him the rifle. Without gravity, it barely beat her out, but the sound of a detonation and the complete half of gunfire behind her had Clarke rushing faster, not wanting to waste the opportunity.

Lincoln shoved her into the ship and closed the airlock doors. "What the hell did you do to make them stop?"

Clarke took off her helmet and let out a heavy breath. "Grenade. Long, cylindrical. Narrow tip."

Lincoln gave her a disbelieving look, his eyebrows rising in kind. "An EMP grenade? That makes no sense, they shouldn't affect their weapons."

"Whatever, let's just burn like hell and get out of here." Clarke ordered across comms, following Raven deeper into the ship as she helped Wells. The ship was entirely unfamiliar, but it seemed at least Anya and Raven knew their way around.

They'd just found their way to the med bay when Anya's voice came over the ship's comms. "Everyone strap in, this could get ugly." The woman said, voice marked with an alarming level of exhaustion and strain.

As much as she hated to admit it, Wells wasn't a vital crew member at the moment. The entire crew's survival wasn't resting on his shoulders. And honestly, the pain in Anya's voice had her chest feeling awfully tight and heavy. "Lincoln, I need you to handle Wells and Raven. Monty, help him out however you can." Clarke ordered, marching through the ship and up the ladder to the upper deck, reaching it and plopping down on the co-pilot's seat just in time to brace for acceleration as Anya guided the ship out of the hangar and into the cold darkness of space.

"I'm going to need Monty and Raven in about an hour, Princess." Anya grit out, the g-force from the acceleration painfully pushing each of them back in their seats as Anya sped away from the Polaris, narrowly avoiding the worst of the PDC spray, a pair of railgun blasts crossing right in front of the cockpit before the pilot accelerated further.

Clarke kept her eyes on the holo screen in front of her that showed four ships hovering around the SSV Polaris, sweat beading on her forehead as she waited for one of them to start moving to chase. "You get us clear and I'll make sure they get up here."

"I'll need them to get clear, and they need to be ready to make this ship silent when I need them to." Anya explained weakly, eyelids dipping as Clarke shifted her gaze to the pilot. The woman looked like she was about to pass out. "Those were...were System Alliance frigates, Princess. If we want to disappear, we have to do this right."

 _The navy shot up their own...but...fuck..._ Clarke tried to piece thoughts together, but nothing was making any sense, so she decided to shelve that for later. Those four ships on radar weren't following, so she just prayed that would still be the case fifteen minutes from then.

Clarke forced her gaze away from Anya's face and down her body, quickly noticing that the side of the woman's suit was shredded. "You got shot!"

"Patch me up when we've put enough distance between us. I'll be fine." Anya grit out as she strained to tap commands into her console, plotting out a trajectory and destination, the lab on Ceres.

"How can you be sure the lab's safe?" Clarke asked, deciding not to harp on about the woman's health quite yet, not wanting to distress the already fragile pilot.

Anya's eyes fluttered closed for a brief moment. "My guess...it's not. But we're burning hard and in range where the other ships can tell where we're heading. We get out of range...we turn our transponder off. Make it seem...like we're sloppy, panicked, green. Stay on course a bit longer, then we go silent. And you leave this bird to me."

"Just tell me what I can do." Clarke said, not liking the uncertainty and wanting to keep her people safe, wanting to ensure their escape.

"Well, you fucked up by wasting yourself up here with me when you could be down in the med bay being halfway useful. We'll be in high-g conditions for the next hour so ask me then. For now, just shut up and let me work." Anya retorted with a bite that Clarke had never before felt from the woman's words.

Anya thought she was useless, and if there was one thing Clarke hated it was feeling useless and having it validated by someone else. She'd felt a rare shred of worry for the terrible woman, one that derailed her from her duties out of entirely justified concern, but placed her in an entirely useless position.

Clarke shut her eyes and focused on the future, knowing that whatever came next, she wouldn't make the same mistake of caring about Anya again.

* * *

 **A/N: So I finished reading Leviathan Wakes the other day, and despite not really digging the show it inspired ("The Expanse"), I felt an urge to write something space-faring again. And because I adored how they handled the Donnager both on screen and in the books, I decided to pay it a bit of a ham-handed homage in helping kick off the main plot arc here in this one. FWIW, this fic won't follow the hard sci-fi approach, in case anyone's expecting that  
**

 **This fic is a true WIP, I'm literally winging it, and there's no pre-determined endgame here, so fair warning. Fic's name inspired by my tumblr friends who insisted on it.**

 **Anywho, I hope you enjoyed!**


	2. Chapter 2

Two things happened when the Corvus decelerated, Clarke bolted out of the co-pilots seat and headed to the lower decks, and Anya let out a pained hiss, bringing a hand down to cover her wound. _So much for medical help_. Anya had long been out of breath from the g-forces, so she worked at steadying her breathing, trying to calm herself and distract herself from the pain.

It wasn't the time to feel pain, anyways. It was the time for phase two of the escape plan, and she'd need help pulling it off. They weren't out of the woods yet, not while they were trapped between Ceres and the Polaris, which was surely boarded and taken by now. Wouldn't make sense to scuttle the ship. Only a matter of time before someone or something chased them down, and Anya had to make sure they wouldn't be around to find out.

"Raven, I'm going to need you down in engineering as soon as you can get there. Monty, I need you with her, and to be ready to turn the transponder off at my mark. The controls for it are on the starboard side." Anya announced over the ship's comms once hear breathing was stable enough to speak without stumbling over syllables.

Anya swiped at the screen in front of her and did a scan of the asteroid field. She knew the area around Ceres well enough from her work before joining the academy, but the rocks weren't exactly stationary. She couldn't entertain guesswork this time around, scanning for specific IDs. "Come on, come on, where are you?"

There was a racket sounding from the lower levels, but she ignored it, eyes glued to the screen, her lips curling into a tired smile when a familiar cluster was logged. "There we go." She let out as she marked a particular asteroid in the system for future reference and started calculations on when it'd be best to deviate from their present course if they wanted to intercept it.

"Anya? We've got room down here in the medbay for you, I'll help patch you up." Lincoln called out over comms.

Anya took a deep breath and moved her bad leg, the sharp spike of pain letting her know that walking wouldn't be much of an option even if she had the energy. She wasn't an idiot, she could feel the pool of blood she was sitting in.

"If you come get me, then fine." Anya responded, wishing she had the opportunity to be prideful, but survival always took precedence. No one gained from her treatment being more difficult than it needed to be. If she died, so would they, and despite her feelings for a few members of their so-called crew, she couldn't do that to Lincoln or Raven.

Lincoln didn't take long getting up to the cockpit, quickly kneeling in front of the pilot's seat and scooping her out of the chair by the hips. Anya wrapped her arms around her friend's neck and kept her focus on her breathing techniques, trying to keep her mind on pain reduction instead of the real worry that something could pop up on the cockpit's displays that could surprise her when she got back.

They needed all the luck they could get.

Lincoln was thankfully efficient, hastily making his way down the stairwells and down to the med bay, carefully depositing her onto the open bed, Wells taking up the other.

"I think it's sad that you made Lincoln do that. You may call me 'Princess', but I'm not the one that demanded a chauffer." Clarke grit out as she worked on Wells' leg, clearly not happy with their exchange in the cockpit.

Maybe she'd been a bit harsh, but she'd been right; there was nothing for Clarke to do up there. She would have spent her time better down in the med bay. Perhaps it was only a minute wasted before takeoff, but it was still wasted. And it was wasted on the return trip as well.

"I'm not so prideful I'd let Lincoln die. I've lost too much blood to stand. Wouldn't make the trip down here on my own." Anya answered, quieter than she'd hoped, but it didn't matter. She didn't have to answer to Clarke.

"Pretty sure we'd live without you, hot-shot." Raven asserted flatly as Lincoln helped her out of her space-suit and cut away the material around the wound.

"Do any of you know...know how to fly this bird? Do...any of you know..." Anya spoke, wincing at Lincoln pressing at her wound again and again to assess the damage. "...know how to navigate the asteroid field without calling attention to yourself? Do any of you...know how to disappear out here?" Anya asked, teeth grit as her friend cleaned the wound, applied the medical gel, and began sewing it up.

Anya expected some sort of response, but nearly ten seconds dragged on as both medics worked away. "I've done some sim runs on escape pods, and I sat in on...you know what, it doesn't matter. We'd make it."

Anya let out a grunt as Lincoln finished up with her wound, applying a large bandage before heading over to the fridge. "You can all hate me later. Right now, I need to get an infusion, get some stims, and get us to safety. After that...whatever."

"You're _not_ going back in the pilot's seat, Anya!" Clarke shot out harshly, spinning around to glare down at her. The younger blonde almost looked worried, but that was probably a trick of the fluorescent lights. "You're half dead. You set a course. Put the auto-pilot on, we'll be fine."

Anya shook her head. "If we put auto-pilot on, then our engines will be on. If our engines are on, then the raiders will be able to track us by our drive signature. You can scan for those from a long, long ways away, Griffin. And if we set a course, they can track our trajectory, communicate it to others they're with up ahead of us, and then we're caught."

"So what _is_ your plan? And why do you need us?" Monty piped up, having need a silent observer up until that point. The boy seemed intelligent, the kind to gather data before making a decision. She hoped she was right about him, even if he was like Clarke.

"I need you because the plan requires a tech and an engineer that know what they're doing, if not specifically, then at least having the talent and smarts to manage it." Anya explained, watching Lincoln set up a blood bag in the machine and feed a needle into her wrist. "You two are as good as anyone I could hope for."

"And the plan?" Raven asked, arms crossing her chest, dark eyes narrowing at her.

Anya swallowed any doubts or fears about the next thirty-six hours and met Raven's stare. "We're going to take a stop on an asteroid and hide out until we change our drive signatures and hull. If we want to disappear, we have to make whoever's out there think we're something that we're not. There was a commercial transport released a few decades back that was nearly this one's clone...with some modifications, we can fudge our hull and signature to be close enough to that where scanners will code our ship as such. We wouldn't have to change much. Without our transponder on, and with some creative hacking with our ship's IFF, we won't be sending loud pings to other navy ships that we're a friendly." Anya explained after taking a deep breath, or as deep of one as she could manage.

"In order to get to that asteroid, I'll have to redirect our trajectory slightly. We'll have to wait until we're out of long range radar to pull that off. From there, we cut the engines after accel, bringing them online intermittently to make corrections if necessary, and then to help decelerate and land. If all goes well, we'll be invisible unless someone looks really closely. Once we're stopped, we can make the modifications, and plan our next move." She finished, seeing some understanding in Raven's eyes, even as Clarke let out a scoff.

"And how long until we curl up on the asteroid? How long do we have to trust you to fly without passing out or worse?" Clarke asked, though her questions sounded unsurprisingly like accusations.

Anya turned her head towards the great annoyance. "Say what you mean, _Princess_."

Clarke opened her mouth to speak, but Raven's voice met Anya's ears first. "Look, we don't need you two butting heads. I'll lay it out there...Clarke thinks you're on drugs, and it's not unwarranted."

Anya 's eyes never left Clarke's face, because fuck if she understood where that accusation came from. That familiar superior expression was never clearer on the woman. Anya wasn't sure whether to spit on Clarke or just laugh.

After a moment of calming her temper, she settled on the latter, letting it bubble out of her. "Are you an idiot? The academy does a drug test for anyone signed up to run their sim programs, both at the start of each term and every time you strap into the machine. Tests the user's biometrics. If I was on anything illegal, I'd earn a flag, get suspended, and go under review."

"You're seriously not on drugs?" Clarke asked, sounding equal parts surprised and baffled. It was actually insulting how little the younger woman knew about protocol, but Anya shouldn't have been surprised when Clarke so often got to ignore it.

Anya let out a huff and sat up, Lincoln's hand quickly finding her shoulder. "Look, the only thing I'm ever on are stims, like any other pilot recruit." Anya insisted. "And it's around six hours to the asteroid. I'll be _fine_."

"We've all been awake for a long time, running on low sleep...it's okay if you take a break." Monty said, hands up as if in some sort of calming gesture.

She shook her head at the assertion. "All I need is to finish this transfusion and get on some stims. I'll be good for at least seven more hours. After Monty hacks the ship's transponder and IFF, I'll only need Raven to be awake, and that's just intermittently. Everyone else can rest up in the meantime."

Clarke took a step closer and placed her hand on the wall above Anya's head. "Even if your plan might work, why should we trust you? You said it yourself, you're just a recruit that runs a sim here or there. Who says we have a better chance at landing on an asteroid than crashing into it?"

"Fuck off, Princess." Anya grunted, quickly finding herself pushed down, aggravating her side wound a little in the process. She was certain the 'do no harm' medical ethos was a bit out of Clarke's reach at the moment. "No, really, _fuck off_. You think I don't have ears? You think I don't hear what you and Raven and Wells and your friends say about me?"

Clarke crossed her arms, leaning slightly back on her heels as she peered down at Anya. "We don't say anything that's not true."

Anya fixed a glare on the blonde, happy to finally have this little confrontation after so long. She'd tried to be the better person. It got her shit all. "So when you laugh about me capping out as an ice hauler, you're joking about it being shameful, right?" Anya seethed, letting out all the built-up venom from hearing Griffin shaming her father's profession for ages. "I'd tell my dad, see, but he takes pride in his work. Every successful trip means drinking water for everyone on Tethys station and Rhea, and maybe a shower with actual water here or there. Over two million people depend on his hauler for survival, because he's the only one willing to do the job due to the pirates and how hazardous the run is. He's a lot more sensitive than me. His heart would break to hear some spoiled Earth girl joking as if what he does is worthless."

If Clarke felt shamed, the younger blonde didn't look it, though the blues of her eyes seemed a little bluer. "Me? I'd sooner toss you out the airlock than let you slam hardworking people who have actually done _something_ of fucking value in their lives, but you're in luck...just so happens they raised me to be a pilot, not a murderer. So I'll settle for telling you to _fuck off_ , because he taught me more than enough to do this."

Anya looked around the room, waiting for more questions. Honestly, she could see more in some of their eyes, but they just looked more tired than anything. Thankfully, the infusion finished up a few moments later, letting her pull the needle from her wrist, cover it with a bandage, and get to her feet.

Her first few seconds upright were unsteady, but after finding her footing, she marched over to the large medicine cabinet, grabbed a bottle of stim pills, and made her way out of the med bay.

"Twelve minutes until you two need to be in position!" She yelled back before making her way up the stairs, using the railing liberally on her way up.

Anya didn't care what they thought of her. She was going to do this whether they liked it or not.

* * *

Until today there had only ever been two people who had humbled Clarke in her life. Both of them were her parents, so she was shocked and dismayed to add Anya Birch to that list.

It was infuriating, because Anya, as a person, was infuriating. However, it didn't make any of her words less true or striking. Clarke had spent years assuming Anya was an addict of some sort, but that was ruled out. And after years of assuming Anya hated her for no reason, she'd realized her offhand quips about people with low-grade piloting jobs had drawn Anya's ire.

Not to say that those quips were the root of Anya's inexplicable hatred for her, since she only began making them after Anya had grown abrasive and hostile with her, but they were clearly a large reason for the fire-eyed woman's loathing of her. To learn that part of that sentiment was deserved...it hurt. It felt shameful.

It was humbling.

She still didn't trust Anya, of course, and the woman hadn't endeared herself to Clarke in the least, but enough of her concerns had been dismissed. Perhaps she was eventually willing to gamble on the notion that Anya would be a better option than the ship's auto-pilot. Didn't mean she _liked_ the woman.

It was just annoying as hell that, after taking a brief sleep in one of the two civilian staterooms in a bed that was exponentially more comfortable than the cramped sleep pods on the Polaris, Anya was still bouncing around in her mind.

Clarke checked the clock and saw two hours had passed, meaning Monty's work had completed, and probably most of Raven's as well, at least until they parked the ship.

Lincoln had taken the other room to sleep, well deserved as far as Clarke was concerned. The man had singlehandedly saved Wells and shielded Monty from fire, so Clarke had quickly changed her tune on him. Wells was still down in the med bay sleeping off his injury with the pain meds he'd been given.

 _Wait...Anya left the bay without taking any pain meds. What an idiot..._ Clarke groused internally, weighing the option of staying in bed and trying to fall back asleep, or to grab something for the pilot who held all of their lives in her hands.

It took a good ten minutes of internal debate, but eventually, with an annoyed groan, Clarke got up and left the stateroom, avoiding the cockpit for the moment in favour of heading to the lower decks to grab some medication.

Maybe she took an extra ten minutes of checking Wells and his vitals, and making sure he was comfortable, too.

Maybe she checked in with Raven, who was dozed off on the ground with a blanket and a pillow, clearly having taken some supplies from the nearby crew bunks. Maybe she grabbed Raven an extra blanket and carefully slipped it underneath her, to hopefully give a more comfortable sleep.

Maybe she checked on Monty, catching him fast asleep on the top portside bunk.

Eventually, she ran out of excuses, grabbed Anya's meds from the med bay, and headed back to the upper levels, stilling at the doorway to the cockpit.

As minutes passed, Clarke found herself on edge, waiting for the rebuke, waiting for the woman's impatience or temper to flare up, but it never came. Eventually, she wondered if Anya knew she was there at all.

After some amount of time that felt both too long and not long enough, Clarke carefully headed into the cockpit and sat down in the co-pilot' seat.

A quick glance Anya's way showed the woman looking more familiar for some reason. Not that Anya had appeared any different than she ever had, but there was something more familiar about her expression, her face, her posture. It both set Clarke more at ease, preferring their predictable dynamic, and had her feeling on edge, knowing that any time they were near each other, harsh words would fly.

Anya broke the silence first, a few minutes later. "Five wide band transmissions washed over us since I got back up here. Missed two when I was downstairs." The woman stated lowly, jaw working from side to side as a thoughtful expression flickered across the woman's features. "Not often you get more than one every few runs."

It wasn't the collection of words Clarke expected, but she was almost thankful for the reprieve from the anger, even if it felt like new territory. "Wide band's limited to government, military, and major space stations. What would they need seven messages for?" She asked, dismissing a stray thought that it wasn't one source, but perhaps many. She could hopefully worry about that possibility later.

Anya shrugged, once again twisting up Clarke's brain, having always known those shoulders to be stiff and tied to the woman's hostile poise. "No clue, but I can't imagine it's anything good. Can't check them in case we could get tracked through accessing them."

"I hate being in the dark." Clarke voiced, speaking to no one in particular, just needing to get that truth out into the open. "I hate not knowing."

Anya turned her head away from the screen in front of her and set her gaze on Clarke. The woman looked tired, her right eye twitching slightly. _That's it...she looks like she did during the semester! Something must be up..._

"Ship comes with a drone used for surveillance, but we can send it off once we park. Something that small, no one's going to notice it. It'll move slow, but give it a day and I can have it at a safe distance, pointed at Mars, and picking up chatter for us. Might mean we have to abandon it though." Anya offered, oddly courteous for the first time in Clarke's experiences with the woman.

Still, Clarke only needed a few seconds of mulling the decision over to know that tossing away an asset like that for intel would be fruitless if they weren't in a position to act on anything.

"No, we can figure out what to do on information gathering when we've made sure we're safe. You're sure your plan will work?" Clarke asked, knowing it was playing with fire a bit, but she wasn't afraid of Anya Birch.

Surprisingly, Anya actually smiled, even if her attention went back to the screens. "Dad's best friend used to fly one of the clones of this, called it the Antimony, for whatever reason. The North American Coalition mass-produced these shuttles and their parts during the war. When it ended, and the Systems Alliance went another direction with their ship designs, they were left with a lot of spare parts. The civvy version of this was about ninety-eight percent the same, just a few things switched around, a different engine configuration, nothing a zero-g mechanic and an engineer couldn't fix up. Still really common, so I'm hoping we'll be able to blend in with the others. Won't be hard to spoof a trajectory between Mars and Jupiter once we're up and running again, and with a new name and new drive signature, we should be fine."

Clarke found herself immediately surprised by how talkative Anya had been since getting to the ship. Usually, outside of insults, the woman rarely had anything to say at length, and yet Anya had ranted or rambled about a few things in just the past few hours.

"You must be in pain. I brought painkillers." Clarke noted, wondering if talking was a form of distraction from the pain Anya was certainly experiencing.

"Dulls my senses. Maybe when we park, but not before then." The woman stated quickly and firmly, though again without her usual anger. It was strange, almost having a conversation with her. Clarke wasn't quite sure how she felt about it.

Deciding to try to keep it going, if only to avoid total boredom, Clarke asked a question with a little more teeth than the others. "Did you fly your dad's ship often?"

She could feel Anya watching her out of the corner of her eye, but kept her cool. Eventually, Anya let out a sigh. "I did. Hauling ice is dangerous, it's easy to get crushed by it, or lose a limb. Saturn's rings are especially dicey, so dad's operation tended to run a few crew members light. He'd fly to the location, suit up for extraction, and help secure the ice himself. Sometimes he'd get hurt and I'd have to fly it back." Anya explained calmly, her voice keeping the same tone as she continued. "When I was nineteen, I had enough experience to get hired to smuggle the occasional object or person from the inner planets past the belt, and vice versa. Got me the money to afford certification tests that the navy recognized. That's why I'm three and a half years older than you. I have eight years of active space-flight experience, longer if you include sims."

Clarke brought her palms to her eyes, feeling like she had to push them back into her skull at the admission. It made an absurd sort of sense, to be honest. Anya had always seemed sketchy, so learning she'd been a smuggler was actually a good fit. "You're a _criminal_?"

"Navy's been short on pilots since the war, and piracy's made sure there's still a lot of risk in the profession. If you could get into the academy's flight program, then past crimes, depending on severity, were forgiven. I was never caught, but since I didn't commit murder or treason or shit like that, I'm basically in the clear." Anya added with a familiar roll of her eyes. "I'll give you a pass on not knowing that, since it's sort of an obscure policy these days, even if it's still active."

"That's a first." Clarke let out, earning Anya's attention, the woman's head turning towards her again. "You always give me a hard time."

"Don't start. I'm too tired to listen to your whining, and there's no point. We're not at school." Anya retorted with a sigh, a response Clarke hadn't expected, but gave her a bit of an in.

"I thought you said the stims would keep you good for hours." Clarke asserted, angling in her seat to face Anya.

Anya's eyes fluttered shut, lips curling into a small smile as she let out a long exhale. "Stims boost a person's cognitive abilities, their senses. It's intense enough to keep a person awake, but it doesn't give a person much extra energy. If you were exhausted before, you'll be exhausted after." Anya explained calmly, making Clarke feel a bit sheepish. As a medic, she probably should have been aware of that, but stims were never really anything doctors prescribed or dealt with. "A person like me needs around a hundred-ten minutes of sleep a day, maybe a hundred-twenty for some. If they get that, stims can bridge the gap. I've been awake for longer than I should...stims will help me get the job done, but I'm tired."

Clarke reeled back slightly and let out a laugh. "People need more than a hundred ten minutes of sleep, Anya. Five to seven hours minimum depending on the person."

Anya's head cocked to the side, the woman leaning slightly with the gesture, signaling that Anya disagreed. "They don't need that much. It's just healthier."

"I'm sure people _love_ their bodies breaking down on them out of exhaustion." Clarke joked, happy to finally be able to snark back at her nemesis.

"I told you, if people get a certain amount of sleep each day, that's enough to keep them at a baseline. They can stim for the second half of the day, or however long they need, and be fully functional. It's not healthy, but it works." Anya stated, as if she was bored more than anything else.

"Sure, until they stim a few too many days in a row and they start to suffer heart problems, or worse." Clarke insisted, not liking how Anya was dismissing her medical training. If Clarke could somewhat respect the woman's piloting abilities, Anya could at least return the favour.

Anya's sigh was about as grating as anything she'd heard in the past twenty-four hours. "I'm not Earth-born, Griffin. I was born out on Tethys. The air's different, the gravity's different, and people are given medication to help us develop _properly_ as kids."

Clarke wasn't sure where Anya was going with this, but they had a long way to go, and no one else was awake. "So? It's standard practice."

"Yes, well, after a few years the...formula...changed a bit. See, Earth got rid of their prison problem by putting prisoners to work in the mines. But miner fatalities were worse than expected. North American Coalition owned Tethys, and Tethys had one of the highest percentages of miners. Being on the wrong side of the belt, there wasn't much variety in jobs to work. So they took advantage." Anya continued, weaving some tale that, by her tone, didn't have a very happy ending. She still wasn't sure about the relevance, but when calm, Anya's voice was actually pretty smooth and soothing.

"How so?" Clarke asked, deciding to keep the conversation going, even if she wasn't sure she liked the direction it was heading. Better annoying discussion than boredom and waiting.

"They experimented with the meds they gave us. See, they wanted to develop the most efficient, survivable miners. They tried a test on Earth-born miners, giving them stims to keep them working longer and better, but they'd eventually die of heart failure a lot earlier. It probably got them wondering what they could do to fix it. Flash forward about twenty years, and the first of us were being born." Anya answered, being entirely too cryptic for Clarke's liking.

Still, she could make an educated guess. "They changed your biology."

"We need less oxygen than Earth-born folks already, and we're generally seen as more disposable, so we were an easy target. Our hearts develop to be immensely strong. Our immune systems are stronger. To a minor extent, our bodies heal a faster to offset the anticipated conditions we'd be working in. Only two professions are provided legal and streamlined access to stims, Griffin. Pilots and miners." Anya continued, taking a moment to shift position in her chair, likely in an effort to try and be comfortable on the annoyingly rigid and inhospitable seats. "Miners tend to work between twenty-one or twenty-two hour shifts, whichever accommodated the travel time back to barracks so they can get their minimal sleep time. They don't suffer much side-effects if they time it right. Slightly more irritable, minor muscle twitches, lasting physical fatigue. They've started making tools so miners don't tire out during their shift, make their work easier if no less time consuming. They've made stims more effective, but it's still a miserable existence."

Clarke was aghast; the entire notion of people working for nearly every minute of their waking lives was revolting, and yet she could absolutely see companies, if not the government, green-lighting that sort of plan, deciding certain people would be disposable.

"I had no idea." Clarke let out, words escaping her in a whisper. "How did I not know that?"

"You're being taught to be a doctor in the navy, Princess. The odds of you operating on someone from outside the belt...not likely. No reason to teach you about us. Besides, it might raise uncomfortable questions." Anya answered with a shrug.

As if it wasn't an earth-shattering revelation that she was being taught that some people were disposable. That Some weren't worth saving, essentially. "Well, for what it's worth I'm glad you..." Clarke started, only for her sleep-deprived mind to put some pieces together. The heightened temper. The small muscle contractions. "...wait, you've been on stims. You've been on them this whole time?"

Anya's laughter felt like sandpaper against her entire being. "Just piece that together? I'm supposed to be the tired one, here, Griffin."

"No, but...you showed the symptoms of stims. Ever since you've been at the academy, you're quick to anger, you're incredibly twitchy, and you always look tired." Clarke stated, though it came out as more of an accusation. To be truthful, though, she really did deserve to know the condition of their borrowed ship's pilot, and how the woman's heart hadn't exploded yet.

"Not everyone gets to go home after school and rest or socialize, Princess. _Some_ of us have to _work_." Anya stated a little more firmly than she'd spoken throughout their oddly lengthy conversation.

"Mars has a minimum wage. You shouldn't have to..." Clarke started, only to bite her lip when Anya let out another of her entirely frustrating sighs.

"Don't patronize me. The minimum wage is for Earth or inner colony-born citizens. Doesn't apply to people born in an unincorporated territory, like space stations. If I was colony-born, I could have worked minimum wage and paid for my certification exams after a month or two." Anya interjected, lifting her arm and twirling her hand. "Look, can we wrap this up? Talking is tiring."

On a normal day, Clarke would be annoyed and upset by the dismissal, but in truth, as much as she still had questions, she was tiring of talking as well. Besides, she'd gone nearly a half hour without Anya blowing up on her and being cruel to her. She'd take that to the bank and count her lucky stars.

"I was hungry anyways." Clarke let out with a huff, getting to her feet slowly to keep Anya from thinking she was rushing away. She wasn't.

Maybe she spent the next half hour down in the galley with a cup of bad coffee. Maybe she took out some decent flavored nutrient bars, strawberry-rhubarb and apple-cinnamon. Maybe she ate two of them.

And maybe, on her way back to the stateroom, maybe she lingered by the entrance to the cockpit. Maybe she squeezed that last nutrient bar a little bit.

Maybe, when she returned to her bedside and placed the halfway mangled nutrient bar on the small bedside table, maybe she felt exactly like she had when she woke.

In retrospect, Anya had offered her something of an olive branch in talking to her, in being so open and candid. And she couldn't set aside their history enough to give the woman some food after not having eaten since who knew when.

 _Why did I keep pressing?_ Clarke mused to herself as she got back under the covers, letting out a confused huff when a second and equally baffling question emerged. _What's her angle?_

Those two questions dominated her thoughts as she drifted back into a restless sleep.

* * *

Anya's body felt as tense as steel as she carefully maneuvered the ship into a small hollow area of asteroid #AJH6078; her brain felt like slush, and her stomach had been rolling and growling for ages, but at long last they would be safe. Or, at least, have bought some time where they could be safe and gather their thoughts.

When they were settled into the nook in the asteroid that would, with near complete certainty, conceal their location, she could rest. Using the screens, Anya watched on, waiting to find the exact spot she'd used on another occasion a long time back. It took a few extra minutes of hovering, but eventually she angled the ship into position and lowered the landing gear, applying the clamps to keep the ship from going anywhere.

"Raven, Monty, are you ready to go?" Anya asked over comms, seriously hoping the duo were all prepped to head out and get work done. A few hours earlier, she'd sent some notes from memory on what changes would need to be made, alongside the schematics for the civilian transport the ship had catalogued in its memory core to aid in recognizing potential nearby spacecrafts. She wasn't a mechanic, but she'd had to improvise with her old crew from back in the day, and they'd cobbled together a working spoof of the transport's civilian version.

With her notes, the blueprints, and a quick drawing of the changes that needed to be made, Anya hoped that the pair could at least start what they'd need before figuring out where to go and what to do as a collective.

"Engines are off, and we're about to step out. Catch some Zs, fly-girl, we've got this from here." Raven called out over comms, though Anya waited until the two were on the outside of the ship and starting their work before finally lifting herself out of her seat.

It took nearly a minute to gingerly make her way to her feet, trying not to aggravate her side wound. The medigel had been something of a stop-gap, really. Sure, she could let it heal despite it, but she hoped Clarke would take a look at it and sew her up properly.

It was one of the reasons she'd allowed herself to be a little forthcoming earlier with the woman. The last thing she needed was a surgeon who hated her to fuck up her body worse than it was, after all.

But past that, she felt it was a mercy. Perhaps not one earned, but at the same time, she couldn't let Clarke's cluelessness about the way life was outside of the elite areas affect the crew and their chances of survival. If disclosing some part of her history could work to bludgeon some sense into the medic, then so be it. Especially if Clarke yammered on about it all to the other crew as she suspected the woman would.

After all, they wouldn't last a second at any major space station or outer colony if some of the others behaved as they did on Mars. They'd have to blend in, and Clarke being aghast at working conditions or the way corporate security treated regular civilians in or out past the belt wouldn't do them any favors.

Besides, while it was a calculated risk telling Clarke of her criminal history, she felt it could potentially earn her some value in discussions on how to get to safety after their current pit stop. Chances were that Wells would want to contact his father, Clarke probably wanting to do the same with her parents, both looking for guidance.

With the amount of wideband chatter, the only thing that really made sense was dissention in the ranks at the very least. Navy ships pulling an attack on a fellow destroyer? Breaching it and killing fellow marines? It all felt like the start of something big, and the last thing they needed was to be some sort of bargaining chip or witness to the attack to be manipulated and used like a pawn.

 _Speaking of being used, I think my body's ready to collapse...but I should get some food in me if I'm going to sleep for ages..._ Anya mused, staggering slowly down the stairs and heading into the galley. Her head was hazy from being awake too long and the after-effects stims sometimes had when she was pushed past her limits, but Anya took her time moving from cabinet to cabinet, figuring out what they had and what she could afford to eat. Without being sure of when they'd find somewhere to dock, it was hard to say how long they'd have to stretch the food and rations they were stocked with.

In the end, she grabbed a nutrient bar, bypassing the few that advertised anything that could help keep her awake longer, and grabbing a regular apple-cinnamon flavored one. It wasn't much, but it was a day's worth of nutrients, and it didn't taste awful, so it could have been worse.

"Why are you still awake?"

Anya slumped forward, head making a dull impact against the galley's table. "Done getting your beauty sleep, Princess?"

"Raven and Monty have been out there for about thirty minutes, already. You should be asleep." Clarke insisted, plopping down onto the seat across from her, arms folded across her chest as if she were actually angry with her for being awake.

"Overtired and hungry. Needed to eat first." Anya let out, barely able to manage the energy for even those words.

Clarke's jaw ticked to the side, lips pursed in clear annoyance. "Wash up, and then take the stateroom I was in."

Anya rolled her eyes, but finished the last bite of the bar and carefully started to work herself to her feet. Before she could even realize it, Clarke was there helping her up. If she wasn't so supremely exhausted, she would have shrugged the woman off; instead, her effort to do just that barely registered in her body, and if Clarke noticed a struggle, she didn't react to it.

Slowly, Clarke guided her to the crew bathroom and pulled out some supplies for her before leaning up against the wall. Anya shook her head, not understanding why the blonde wouldn't just leave her be, but she eventually finished washing up and brushing her teeth.

It took longer than she was proud of to make it up the stars but, thankfully, Clarke didn't make mention of it or cheer or on, or complain. Just the sound of their sluggish footsteps ascending one step at a time until they were in front of the vacant stateroom.

Anya had never ventured into either of them during her time on the craft, not seeing the relevance. So she was a little surprised when Clarke opened the door and revealed a cabin that despite its size had a bed bigger than she'd ever dreamed she'd sleep on, and a small desk with a chair nestled into the narrow section of the room.

Her body was practically on auto-pilot as she shambled her way towards the bed, Clarke keeping her steady and pulling the covers back for her.

"I'll, um...leave you to it." Clarke mumbled once Anya was fully splayed out on the bed.

Anya managed to lean up on an elbow by the time Clarke neared the door. "Princess." She called out wearily, using the moments it took for Clarke to hesitate and turn towards her to muster the energy for more words. Clarke hadn't needed to show her a kindness, but she had, even if she was particularly annoying in doing so. Anya was raised better than to ignore that, for better or worse. "Thank you."

She didn't get to see Clarke's expression, her eyes slipping shut unbidden as her body fell back down onto the wonderfully firm mattress that had just the perfect amount of give to it. Still, the woman's voice rang through the room clear as a bell. "You're welcome, Anya."

The oddly soft way Clarke spoke her name was the last thing in her mind as she drifted off.

* * *

 **A/N: So this chapter was a little rough. Not much happening, so I felt it'd be a good time for a bit of an info dump. Some basics, since they'll be heading into more adventurous areas soon enough, and I didn't want you all to go in blind and have to info dump on location when it might clog up what's happening in those scenes.**

 **Hope you enjoyed!**


	3. Chapter 3

Raven scuffled her way up to the galley, tired from her hours of work, but content with the progress she'd made with Monty. She'd been a little skeptical of Anya's plans, but after looking at the blueprints and realizing that the alterations would be a little challenging, she'd been on board. And while there had been a snag or two, Raven felt good about being able to keep the others on the ship safe.

However, her body was aching, and she could use a damn good nap at the very least. However, Clarke made the call for a group meeting practically as soon as she stepped foot back on the ship, and as much as she loved the girl, she just was not feeling a brainstorming session before she caught a bit of rest.

Raven took a quick pit stop to relieve herself and grab some strips of jerky before heading to the conference table beside the galley. Monty, of course, had gone right up, always so punctual. Ridiculous.

"I think we all know why we're here, so let's get this over with." Raven announced as she sat down hard onto the remaining seat and peered around the table at the others.

Clarke stood up and took a steadying breath. Raven wasn't sure who exactly declared the blonde captain, but outside of Anya, her best friend seemed to be happy to take on the responsibility. She'd keep an eye on the situation, and hoped Clarke wouldn't crash and burn.

"We left the Polaris only knowing we had to get out. We weren't sure if we'd survive the trip, but we did. We're safe, and hidden, so we have time...but we should plan our next step, because no one else in the solar system is waiting turns. Every hour we waste is one where others might be more equipped to find us, or do more harm to others in the system." Clarke stated, drawing a series of nods across the table. "We need to figure out where we go from here. What our options are. Raven?"

Raven let out a much deserved sigh. "Honestly, I'd like to head back to Mars, but in removing the paint from the ship, we damaged some of the coating that keeps this bird safe and stable when entering atmo. So any major planet's a no-go automatically until we get that fixed, and we don't have the resources or tools here to fix it."

"The Navy does." Wells piped up. Raven fought herself not to roll her eyes. She loved the Navy as much as anyone else, but even she knew they couldn't be completely trusted until they knew what was going on with them, and how to point out the good from the bad. "There's a shipyard on Ceres. My aunt works in a lab on base, she's an admiral...I'm sure they'd be up for helping us out, and they'd understand why we did what we did."

"Even if your aunt's trustworthy, we can't know the rest of Ceres is, and Navy follows a strict hierarchy. If someone above her disagrees, she's powerless. Anything government is a wild card right now. We need certainty until we have more intel. Navy might be the smart call when we know what's happening, but until then, we should stay out of sight." Lincoln piped up, making a good lick of sense in her mind. The man usually wasn't much of a talker, and that was probably the longest she'd heard him speak.

Clarke sat back down and took a swig of water. "I agree. We're vulnerable right now, and we need to protect ourselves before we can put us in a position to make a move, whatever that might be."

"I don't run sims, but I do play video games and I have watched movies. If someone catches up to us, we want to be able to do something about it. The g-forces alone with this bird aren't suited to on-the-fly repairs, and the twin turrets mounted on it need to be operated in real time. Can't do that when we're running for our lives. We need strong enough dampers to convert this baby to be deep space-ready. If we can't fly in atmo, and we can't adapt in space, then we're a sitting duck." Raven stated, figuring she didn't have a solution to that problem, but maybe the others would have enough ideas to cobble something together.

Anya leaned back in her seat, eyes focused on the center of the table, deep in thought. After a few moments, the woman leaned forward and activated the holo screen, pulling up a map of the belt. "Raven's got a point. We made it off the Polaris because we were low priority. They've more than likely accomplished their goals prioritized above us, so if they're after us and find us, we'll be dead to rights."

"I love your optimism. It's _inspiring_." Monty chimed in, earning a few less than hearty laughs. Raven would have had she not been so tired, both physically and of Anya's regular attitude.

"I know a place with a lot of traffic. Not the nicest area, but no one's usually watching who comes and goes." Anya typed something in on her interface and brought an asteroid up on the main screen. "Eunomia prides itself on being an independent hub of commerce. Maybe not ideal, but it's one of two places in range where we can patch up our shielding, grab a fresh coat of paint, and gear up before making our next move. The other place is Carrasco Station, and that's essentially System Alliance-owned in all but name, and where anyone would expect us to head. Anything happens in the system, someone on Eunomia knows immediately, so we'd figure out what we've been missing out on over there without drawing any unwanted attention our way. Then we can hatch a new plan."

Raven knew she was staring. She knew that simply looking at the shifty pilot wouldn't give her any new information, but she was flummoxed. Yes, flummoxed, she happened to like that word. Either way, any time it seemed that they were in a pinch, Anya happened to have an answer, and that was unnerving.

It meant that Anya was holding something back, and Raven happened to hate secrets.

"That's all well and good, however you came across this information, but we don't exactly have funds to work with." Monty added, slightly dimming Raven's enthusiasm for Anya's plan of action. They couldn't get new dampers without some serious coin.

"This place...Eunomia...do you know if there's a place where you can exchange money? Uh...you know...clean it, so we can use our own?" Clarke asked, eyes focused on the pilot.

Anya was still staring at the holo, but she gave a shrug in acknowledgement, only speaking up after a few agonizingly long seconds. "There is. I may know a woman, assuming she's still alive."

"Why would she _not_ be alive?" Wells asked, sounding as alarmed as a few of them appeared to be about that little addition.

"It's a former mining colony that got scrapped in the civil war. All the non-military residents were abandoned there, left to die. Some...less than above board people came around and after some negotiations, decided it'd be a good neutral ground for trading, repairs, whatever. People could have grudges with other pirates or merc groups, but spilling blood? Not common there." Anya explained, perhaps answering Wells' question, but creating about two dozen new ones in Raven's mind alone. "But if anyone dies, it's always the help, as a clear message to those who cross the line and don't follow the rules. The woman I know...she's good people, but she runs the books for some less than savory types last I checked, and that can put an expiration date on a person if you're not crafty. Niylah...she's smart, but not paranoid enough."

Raven sat back in her seat, unsure how to feel about all the information coming her way, compounded by the fact that Clarke, of all people, was giving an understanding nod when there was zero reason for Griffin to know about any of it.

"Anyway, the exchange? How would it work?" Clarke asked simply, bypassing all the obvious questions for another question about money. Sure, currency was important for their continued survival, but they didn't know one of the crew members, clearly. That was more important.

"It's easy enough. With the right broker, and the right system, you can get money out of a frozen account...which I assume all of ours are until we know otherwise...and into a new account. Unplanned, short notice, and set to occur on a timed delay for our protection? Probably looking at a twenty-percent cut for the broker, maybe a bit more depending on the heat we have on us. But there shouldn't be any other complications." Anya answered, again with far too much comfort and familiarity about the subject material for her liking.

Raven moved to her feet and pressed her palms on the table. "Can I just ask the question of how you _know_ any of this? Like, sure, good shit that you can push us in a potentially helpful direction, but you're growing shadier by the second, fly-girl, and if I can't trust you, then why should I go along with any of this?"

Anya finally broke her focus away from the holo, brown eyes shifting to meet Raven's gaze. "Pretty sure you know I grew up outside the belt." Anya stated, and Raven nodded, having heard as much somewhere or another over the years. "Tethys. Where you're generally a miner, work in-house in service or maintenance, or you're a pirate. My dad hauled ice, I learned how to fly from him. You make shit wages out there, and I needed money to afford the courses to get into the Navy, so I smuggled and taxied for a few years. I'd move the occasional person who wouldn't otherwise clear customs off Tethys to someone on Eunomia who could get them where they needed to go. Or sometimes I'd smuggle someone who needed to hide out past the rim. Either way, I'd run into a lot of people, and most of them would only have legit accounts to pay through, so we'd need a broker to make sure there wouldn't be a trace. That answer your question?"

A smuggler. They were being led in part by a smuggler. A _criminal_. Honestly, it explained a lot about the woman.

"Oh thank god."

"You're a criminal?!"

Monty and Wells' voices were a twisted mess of relief and outrage, but it was Lincoln and Clarke's absolute non-reactions that had Raven curious. Clearly, her blonde BFF managed to have enough of a conversation with Anya while she was out, because no way Clarke knew about any of that back on Mars, or even on the Polaris. And no way her Clarke wouldn't be taking Anya to task over this.

"I'm trying to save our asses, Wells. Don't make this something it's not." Anya let out with an annoyed sigh, slumping back in her seat.

"You were so eager to break regs on the Polaris, I should have known..." Wells started up, clearly about to go on one of his lengthy rants. To his credit, Raven usually agreed with his lengthy rants, it wasn't like Wells wasn't something of a prodigy. That Clarke stood up and slammed her hands on the table to cut him off was something that had Raven watching carefully. It wasn't often those two butted heads, after all.

"Those marines that boarded the Polaris tried to _kill_ us. They _killed_ the soldiers on the Polaris. It's not the time to debate whether we made the right call, because we're alive, and we need to figure out how to _stay_ that way. I don't like it any more than you do, but Anya's criminal history gave her connections we can use. She has _experience_ being on the run and hiding out here in the belt." Clarke argued firmly, words coming out slow and commanding. "It's just like chess, Wells. We use what we have available. We make the necessary risks, we set ourselves up for victory the best way we can while scouting our opponent. We're operating in the blind right now. We need intel, we need resources, and we most likely need parts if everything's gone to hell with the Navy. If you couldn't see your opponents first few moves, how would you open?"

"I don't like this, Clarke." Wells retorted, casting wary glances Anya's way every few seconds.

"You don't have to like it. You don't have to like _her_ , either. This is a group decision." Clarke stated, looking around the table. "Do we go with this plan, or do we figure something else out? Raise your hands in favour."

Raven watched Anya and Lincoln's hands lift into the air, followed by Monty's, ensuring at least half support. She could see the tension growing between Clarke and Wells and decided to raise her own hand, giving the plan a majority. It was a reasonable scheme, and by the slight relief on both Clarke and Wells' faces, she figured the intangible benefits were a plus as well.

"That settles it then. So how do we get this done?"

* * *

Clarke looked at her tentative list of supplies and frowned. It was good that they'd be stopping off to re-stock while their ship got repairs done, because it was clear that their ship wasn't well stocked. Not that there wasn't plenty of storage space, but clearly the navy hadn't prioritized stocking their shuttle for lengthy missions, given they would have maybe four days of food left upon docking, maybe less depending.

The only things that were well stocked, as she peered into the final cabin of the med-bay, were weapons and medicine. They had so much medicine it was ridiculous. And, according to Lincoln, enough guns and ammo for a full twelve man naval strike team to work a dozen full training exercises.

Normally, she'd think that was a good thing, having seemingly expensive objects in abundance, and only really lacking in food and drink, but her talk with Anya a ways back had her wondering exactly how rare food was out in the belt. For her, it'd never been a question of getting three meals a day and enough food for leftovers, but she couldn't just expect some rock out in the belt to be fully stocked in food.

And without food, they'd starve. No point fixing their shuttle with expensive repairs if they'd only last a few days afterward and die in the dead of space.

"Fancy meeting you down here. Got anything to add to the shopping list?" Raven asked, stepping into the med-bay, almost startling Clarke with how quietly she snuck up on her.

"As much food as we can buy and reusable toiletries seem like good bets. I wouldn't kill for a change of sheets and pillowcases for the beds, but if this ends up looking like a long term thing, I think we look into it. Monty's pledged most of his money to the cause, same with me and Lincoln. Wells is a bit gun shy, he'll have an answer when we figure out what the Navy's done." Clarke answered, shutting the cabinet and turning to lean against it.

"Yeah, if this gets stretched out and messy, gotta bet some creature comforts will keep us sane. Thankfully, I don't really need anything more than some basic supplies outside of the dampers for this bird. Looks like our shopping list won't be too long." Raven agreed, pulling a nutrient bar from her pocket and taking a bite out of it. "Honestly don't know what to expect when we get there."

Clarke let out a laugh and shook her head. "Yeah, me neither. I figure Anya will want to strangle us ten minutes in."

"You think she'd last ten whole minutes without feeling the urge to strangle any of us? _Please_ , be realistic." Raven let out, mirthful eyes slowly narrowing on her. "But seriously, you and her good now? When the hell did that happen?"

Clarke physically recoiled at Raven's words, face feeling warm from the accusation. "We're...we're not _good_ , Raven. _God_. I still don't like her, but she...I don't know, _clarified_ some shit. She was in this weird haze of exhaustion and stims and was weirdly open, and helped make sense of a lot of things."

Raven let out a scoff that made it abundantly clear that she wasn't convinced. "Like, what, that she's a criminal?"

"I guess? And like...I know now why she's grumpy all the time. She sleeps two hours _at most_ and stims the rest of the day, for months and months at a time. Apparently that's normal out past the belt. And she hates me, at least in part, for making fun of ice haulers, because her dad's one. And I guess since she's not born on Earth, Mars, or some official colony, that she's technically not considered a citizen, so people like her don't qualify for any kind of social assistance, minimum wage, or probably a lot of other rights, so like...yeah, she's bitter. For good reason, I guess." Clarke relayed at length, unsure if she went into too much detail, but she always shared everything with Raven. "It means I understand her more now, but it doesn't change the fact that she's a mega-bitch. If I'm cutting her some slack, it's because she's helped us get this far, nothing more. There's a lot of unadulterated loathing between us."

Honestly, the notion of her liking Anya was entirely absurd. You couldn't just wipe years of mutual unadulterated loathing from the ledger with a single conversation. Or, hell, even a sleepy and hypothetically cute 'thank you'. Neither could accomplish that.

So there was just no way.

"Okay, okay, I get that. Just keep me in the loop, okay? I don't need you two going from being at each other's throats to making _space babies_ without at lea..." Raven joked, and Clarke was midway through shoving Raven when she realized her friend was clearly just trying to annoy her.

"Oh shut up, Reyes! Let's just get our lists up to the cockpit. We're closing in on Eunomia, so she'll probably want to know where she needs to steer us to when we get there." Clarke let out with a heavy sigh, deciding not to shake Raven off when her friend looped an arm around hers and led them towards the upper deck.

"You knoooowwww..." Raven drawled, a sure sign that Raven was either going to say something aggravating or amusing. Judging by their time together that cycle, Clarke would bet money on the former. "If Anya spends twenty two hours a day all stimmed up and alone in the cockpit...gotta wonder what other kind of stimulation she might get up to in the meantime to cut the boredom."

Clarke had face-palmed by the time Raven said 'stimmed', and literally wanted to die by the end of her little hypothetical thought exercise. "Oh my god, Raven, I don't want that image in my mind!"

"Come on, she's a bitchasaurus rex but she's not bad to look at. Like, I caught her working out yesterday, and like, she's still injured as fuck or whatever, which kinda dampens the mood, but she's toned. And she was _glistening_..." Raven rambled as they made their way slowly up the stairs.

Clarke shuddered, hoping she could physically shake the heat flooding her body at the images Raven's words were inspiring. Sure, on a purely physical level, one could make the argument that Anya was attractive. But Anya was a bitch. They hated each other still, at least definitely on Anya's end, so none of it mattered. It was gross.

"I still can't believe you have a sweat kink." Clarke groaned, earning a quick smack to the back of her head.

"Hey! Not sweat specifically, I just...I like it when attractive people are shiny, it looks sexy! And maybe I kinda like some people's natural aromas, too, so that kinda mixes, but it's more refined than a 'sweat kink', Griffin!" Raven ranted, only growing more agitated as Clarke laughed at her attempts to justify her fantasies. "At least I'm not hung up over that warrior princess character on that show you like."

Clarke gasped, hand swiftly pressing against her chest in shock. "Don't talk about Lexa that way!"

"Or what, you'll regale me with your fanfiction of her and a 'crafty blonde from space' making out?" Raven asked, waggling her eyebrows as if she hadn't just been invasive about a very personal element of her private life.

"Ohhhhhh my god, how did you...?! That was personal!"

"And I took it _very personally_ that you'd hide something like that from me. Made for a few evenings of quality reading, babe. You're a surprisingly good writer."

"I went to art school!"

"You focused on drawing and painting!"

"That doesn't mean I just neglected creative writing!"

"So what, did you dip into music and pull off some of that ye olde riverdance stuff, too?"

Clarke just sighed and gave Raven a light shove. "Boundaries, Raven. Learn about them." Clarke insisted as they reached the upper deck, giving her a pointed stare before turning and heading towards the cockpit, where she could hear a conversation oddly enough. All the other crew were sleeping, last she checked.

"...and Ryder? Is he still kicking it as part of Tsing's security?" She heard Anya ask. It was when she stepped into the small room and saw a videostream up on the vidcomms that she slowed her pace and hung back, feeling Raven collide into her back with a huff.

"He's actually head of her security now. You've missed a lot a lot, love." A blonde woman with an angular face responded on screen, eyes shifting to Clarke. "And apparently so have I? New crew, or something more...involved?"

Anya didn't seem at all surprised, if her laughter was any indication. "Neither. It's...just a complicated situation myself and a few others found ourselves in, and I'm trying to find my footing. I guess now that we have an audience, we should get to business."

The woman on screen leaned back in her chair, face twisting a little in reluctance. "I suppose we can do away with the small talk, though we _will_ be catching up during your visit, Anya."

Clarke, peering around the chair could literally see the pilot's cheeks growing redder. Clearly she'd intruded on a social call.

It was absurd. They were on the run, under the threat of potential death, and Anya was flirting with some horse-faced, scraggly-haired woman. It was a cosmic joke, and she was happy to help put an end to it.

"We're coming in hot and we need a bit of a tune-up with paint and parts. Any way you can get us cleared for docking at Indra's?" Anya asked, and immediately, the other woman's face went dark. Just for a moment, perhaps, but it was enough for Clarke to have a bad feeling stirring in her gut.

"You left here owing a favor to her, little dove. It's long overdue and she will collect if I arrange for you to dock." The woman answered all low and soft, clearly pushing to dissuade Anya. The looming invisible threat of Anya's past almost had her missing the embarrassing term of endearment.

Raven, of course, keyed in on that immediately. "Well _THAT's_ adorable. Look, whatever has to happen's gotta happen, because we need some goddamn dampers on this bird. If this Indra can get the parts, I'll put in the labour and we'll find the money, but we _need_ it. So Anya will take care of that favour, and will get things settled."

"I was wondering when the supporting cast would pipe up. You usually enjoyed a more talkative group to surround you and your brooding, silent moods, but I suppose time changes everything." The woman continued. "But if you can do Indra her favour, I am sure I will be able to get you access to her docks and supply yard."

"I'll make it happen. Send word." Anya stated with a firm nod. "In the meantime, Niylah, Clarke here, along with some others, will need your help with their finances when we get to Eunomia. I trust we could work out something mutually beneficial?"

Niylah's eyes returned their focus to Clarke for a few long moments before a slow smile spread across her lips. "Oh I believe that would be an understatement." The woman practically purred. "Go to the comms panel in the corner of Caris' bar. Unscrew the keypad, lift it and take the holo-interface. Ryder's code is 1455H8K. I'll let him know you're coming, but he'll have to personally let you into the secure wing I operate from these days, and escort you to me to avoid suspicion. My boss has been paranoid lately, for good reason."

Clarke wrote the instructions down on paper just in case no one remembered, but she had a feeling it wouldn't be necessary.

"What, Tsing and Wallace going at it again?" Anya asked with a laugh.

"Honestly it's just reached a brand new flavour of ridiculousness. A small Naval craft came in last cycle with an ambassador that just decided, out of thin air, that Eunomia was being rightfully claimed by the System Alliance as a staging area. Eunomia's never been overtly violent, but that opened the door for pure slaughter, and then some shady deals went down in the aftermath, and a lot of people are on edge here. Sol is changing quickly, Anya. I wouldn't stay any longer than you had to if I were you." Niylah explained, freezing Clarke to the spot.

On one hand, the Navy seemed to be on the lookout for them still, and ramping up their search in kind by trying to set up a few bases of operations in the belt to work from. On the other hand, the Navy wasn't on Eunomia anymore, and they'd probably have a window to work with, but still, some Naval officers died. She might have known them.

"Your people just killed the officers from the Navy?! Do you know what's going on?!" Clarke asked, breaking into the conversation for once.

Niylah shot her an unimpressed stare, lips pursing in annoyance. "I try to keep my nose out of things that don't have to do with Eunomia, keeps me from getting distracted. So no, other than the Navy being strangely unhinged, I don't have a clue. But they came here demanding we hand over our ships, our parts, our food and drink...that we all submit ourselves to an immediate draft and enlist. That they were taking Eunomia, full stop, without compensation. I shouldn't have to tell you that their demands didn't go over well, but they weren't exactly peaceful from what I understand. So of course they died. They left us all to die after the civil war, and then they return and demand we submit. Life doesn't work that way, Clarke, but perhaps you weren't so aware of that."

"I'm not entirely ignorant." Clarke bit back, earning a sincere smile from Niylah, oddly enough.

"Good. Naiveté will lead you to a swift death out here in the void." Niylah stated before turning her focus back to Anya. "I have to go for now, love, but I'll get back to you when you're an hour out. Take care, Anya."

With that, the feed went black and silent, the call ended. Clarke had about a thousand questions bubbling up in her mind. Thankfully, or perhaps not, she had Raven there to delve to the serious issues at hand.

"Yeah, _little dove_ , gotta take care of us hatchlings, right?" Raven teased, leaning in at Anya's side from behind the pilot's seat.

"Raven...I will say this, and I will say this _once_ , so you had best listen." Anya asserted lowly, clearly not taking well to Raven's teasing. Not that she ever did.

"Sure thing, _little dove_." Raven shot back with a grin, and Clarke could only lean against the co-pilot's seat, wishing she had popcorn for the entertainment.

"When pilots take stims, our senses are heightened. _All_ _of them_." Anya spoke, the words freezing Clarke to the spot, Raven seeming no better as her dark eyes widened. "And while I take my piloting too seriously to get up to anything _extra-curricular_ while on the job, when I'm out of this chair and doing whatever I do...maybe exercising, for example...I'll still notice every hitch in your breath when I do chin-ups. I'll hear the moan you trapped at the back of your throat, I'll be able to smell what I do to you from across the damn ship. I'll also hear every muttered insult tossed my way, and that's no way to get some hands-on experience with someone you're attracted to. Think about that the next time you're enjoying yourself to the skilled handiwork of Clarke's fanfiction instead, because when it comes to you, you'll only ever get to _look_ at my 'glistening' self. Am I making myself clear?"

"Crystal." Raven choked out, jaw jutting to the side before marching out of the cockpit, leaving Clarke alone with Anya.

"We'll be docking in a bit over five hours. You two should get some rest." Anya stated as she returned her focus to the displays in front of her, voice steely as ever.

"Anya, look, she...we..."

"Give me the inventory and get some rest, Clarke. With all the insurmountable _unadulterated loathing_ between us, and the ghastly threat of space babies, there's no reason for you to be here any longer than you have to be." Anya added, hand sharply shooting out, palms up, to accept her and Raven's lists.

It wasn't like Clarke wanted to be in the cockpit. She didn't. And it wasn't as if she didn't stand by her words from earlier, because she did. But something just didn't feel right; it wasn't something she could pinpoint, maybe something in the woman's voice, or her body language, but something inside of her was telling her she shouldn't leave.

Still, Anya was right; by her own admission, she shouldn't stick around, so Clarke handed over their lists and quickly fled the cockpit, heading down to the galley instead, every step she took more and more frustrated and upset. Upset for reasons she couldn't locate let alone understand, and frustrated because she hated not understanding.

It was a mess, and as she grabbed a carton of juice, she wondered when Anya had gained the power to perplex her. There'd never been anything confusing about their dynamic in the past aside from the origins, but with that mostly known, she was supposed to have more clarity.

Instead, she was just more in the dark. She couldn't wait until they docked at Eunomia, she could use Anya not being around her for once. Maybe that would help give her some clarity.

She could only hope.

* * *

 **A/N: Short chapter because the next one's going to be their hijinks on Eunomia. Things will pick up a bit, once they arrive...**  
 **Anywho, I hope you all have had wonderful weekends, I wish you the best :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**CW: Violence, blood, gore, etc.**

* * *

As soon as she got the all clear that the docking clamps had secured the ship, Anya ambled out of the pilot's chair, grabbed the coat she'd found in the ship's storage, and slowly made her way down to the lower deck, knowing the rest of the crew had been gathered there for the last ten-ish minutes. It wasn't as if she could hurry along the safety measures, and something told her the crew wouldn't be happy for their ship to drop and crash, leaving them stranded for weeks on Eunomia, but she cut most of them some slack, given they'd likely never been out in space with any real responsibility before.

As soon as she entered the cargo bay, she could practically hear Clarke's exasperated relief. "Now that everyone's here, I'll go over the plan of action." Clarke stated loudly, though Anya did her best to tune it out as she opened up the armory and started stocking herself up with necessary equipment. "Lincoln, Monty, Anya, and I are leaving the ship to run some errands. This Indra person has agreed to retrofit our ship with what we need in exchange for taking care of the favour Anya owes her and twenty thousand credits. Anya's contact Niylah has lined up a buyer for three quarters of our armory's stock, and she'll take care of transferring money from our personal accounts to a new, collective account."

Monty stepped forward as Anya sheathed her combat knives and strapped on a flashbang. "Once we get that processed, she'll hand over a cut of our money in person, deducted from what would be in our accounts, so we can buy supplies here for our next few trips. Anya pointed out some locations in this sector of the station where we could have some luck with food and everything else. But we all stay where we need to be until us four get back. That means Raven, you're staying to help work on the ship. And Wells, you're here to take any comms we might send your way, and to make sure no one runs off with it while we're gone, or stows away in storage when we're not looking."

Anya looked over the remainder of their arsenal, grabbing a trio of pistols as well, figuring Lincoln, Clarke, and Monty should be armed just in case. Once the speech was over, she made her way over to Clarke, waving Lincoln and Monty over to follow.

"Station only allows small arms, and it's concealed carry, so keep them concealed. Don't want to draw any unnecessary attention if we can avoid it." Anya said as she handed out the guns.

"None for you?" Monty asked, prompting her to flip her coat to the side and lift up her right pant leg, revealing the two knives in their holsters.

"Combat knives? _Really_?" Clarke asked skeptically, and all she could do was shrug. She stuck with what she knew. Growing up, it was easier to find sharp objects to practice self defense with than it was to find an actual gun and somewhere she could discharge it without worrying about venting atmo or destroying some vital part of their area's life support systems.

"I hope we don't need these." Lincoln noted solemnly as he attached the weapon to his magbelt.

Anya just nodded and gestured to the door, knowing Indra was probably already growing impatient with them.

"So this Indra...how trustworthy is she?" Raven asked as the group headed out of the airlock and into the covered walkway to the station.

"Her people are fast, and she's fair and honest. You don't run into many people like that here. She's stern, but her word is gold, and you should trust what she tells you." Anya answered, grin spreading on her lips as Indra entered the corridor from the other side.

It'd been a long few years, but Indra didn't show it, looking the same as she did the last time Anya had seen her. "You're always late."

"No excuses here." Anya shot back as they neared each other. She gestured to Raven. "This is Raven, she'll be helping you with the repairs and installation."

Indra gave Raven a scrutinizing once over, but nodded. "Fine. The shielding and paint will take all of two hours. Installing and configuring the inertia dampers will take longer. Six or Seven hours to retrofit the KM-188s to your ship."

Anya wasn't sure what those were, but the declaration literally had Raven tripping over her feet in shock as they exited out onto the docks. "The...you're tossing KM-188s on this bird? Those...those are worth more than our ship!"

She gave Indra a long look, one the veteran dockhand returned in kind. "An investment for the favour I'll be requiring of you. It's in my best interests that your ship is capable." The woman stated cryptically, gesturing her head towards her office. "You all can wait over there with Artigas, he'll give you what you need to get around the station. I need to discuss an arrangement with Anya in private."

Anya sighed, knowing that wouldn't fly with her group, even if it was likely for the best if they knew as little as possible. "Clarke's essentially co-captain with me, so she sits in too." It was a concession she knew she'd make, lest she never hear the end of it from the rest of the crew, so she hoped her pre-emptive measure would succeed.

Indra stared Clarke down for a few long seconds, but nodded in the end. "You two, follow me. The rest with Artigas."

Anya glanced in Clarke's direction and caught the woman staring suspiciously at her. Honestly, if she knew doing a good deed would give her the evil eye, maybe she would have just left it at her and Indra.

Once they were all in the office, her old friend closed the door behind them and leaned up against it. "What I'll be asking of you is an especially sensitive task, Anya."

Anya found a nearby chair and plopped down onto it, having a feeling that the favor she owed Indra would come back and bite her in the ass. "All of your tasks for me have been 'sensitive', Indra."

"This one is especially so. With the Navy sniffing around, and their spies inside the station, Eunomia is growing less safe by the hour. I'm sure it's no coincidence you decided to stop here, with your ship that looks strangely like a Naval shuttle from the recently hijacked Polaris."

"Hijacked?! By who?" Clarke piped up, earning a disgruntled frown from Indra at the interruption.

"At least you stayed under a comms blackout. But yes, the Polaris was taken by a rebel faction within the System Alliance. They've declared war, and are holding hostage some important people high up in the Navy. They've been executing one every day, sending them out the airlock and into space without protection. Whoever they are, they're stirring up another civil war, given a number of colonies and areas on Earth and Mars have been taken, a research and development facility on Luna base, along with their apparent base of operations on Ceres." Indra explained, her words forming a pit in Anya's stomach. She'd expected something big, but nothing of that sort of scale.

"So what's the mission? What do you need us to do?" Anya asked, skipping past commentary on the system's issues, needing to worry about how to complete their mission and get off the rock as soon as possible.

"Eunomia can't afford their civil war. We've just recently managed to get a chancellor on the System Alliance council to represent the interests of us 'independents'. There are strict rules, as you are aware of, for the few of our kind who are naturalized for the political process. Chancellor Kane has been fighting for our citizenship rights, and has been making headway, strong alliances, doing favors. We're close." Indra clarified, almost rambling, which was unlike her, and had Anya worried. "You know we're not allowed more than one child. If the Navy keeps sniffing around Eunomia..."

Anya bit back a collection of slurs, knowing that Kane guy was too good to be true. "How old is the kid?"

"What kid? We don't smuggle chil..." Clarke started, before Anya turned sharply towards her with a glare.

"We'll do what we _have_ to!" She bit out, turning her focus back to Indra. "The kid?"

"Eighteen. Technically not a 'kid', but still someone in need of protection. If she were to be found, we'd lose Kane and every political gain we've made the past eight years with him as the Independent peoples' representative, and she'd be floated." Indra answered gravely.

Anya sat back and shook her head in disbelief. It was ridiculous. "Damn it."

"Floated...? Like..." Clarke stammered, not quite putting the pieces together and showing her naiveté.

"Murder. Population's controlled strictly on independent states like Tethys, same with where Kane is from, and unless you're in a more prestigious role that benefits them, you're limited to having one child under System Alliance regs. So if parents have too many kids, they leave the parents alive and kill the kids. Makes them live with their decision, so...people just avoid having more than one kid, basically. No one likes seeing an infant get floated. This girl we'll be assigned to would be killed for the crime of existing, Clarke. We're doing this." Anya explained lowly and quickly, wanting to get everything over with. They could talk politics back on the ship, but clearly, they had things to do, and that girl needed to be brought to safety. "What do you need from us?"

"I need you to keep her safe. If you know of a safe place to keep her, then I would trust you with that, but I would prefer she be with you. I know you would protect her." Indra stated with a sigh. "Her step-brother has her up on the fourth level in B-wing. Here's a datapad with all of the coordinates and details you'll need. By the time you return and finish your business, we should be close to finished. You'll have some time left on the station, but once repairs are complete, I want you _gone_."

Anya let out a long exhale as she looked over the map of the station. The girl was a long ways away, and that meant a lot of time for things to go wrong. Still, it wasn't like she had a choice. "Understood. Clarke?"

Clarke's face was the picture of conflict, but the other blonde eventually nodded. "We can't let someone die over this. Fine."

Anya had a sinking feeling in her gut over the whole thing, but at least she and Clarke were on the same page about something.

That, at least, was a start.

* * *

You had to give it to Eunomia, the place seemed determined to function despite everything. As they'd traversed their way through the asteroid, it became clear which remaining areas were still operating according to code when they were built, and which were just improvised.

For instance, the shuttle to B-wing. Knowing it was a mining colony, and seeing that their rail car's walls were shoddily made and consisting of scrap metal fused together, it was clear that the rail system likely initially supported much wider cars, carrying many more miners. Instead, the cars were narrow, weaving through the wreckage of the rail tunnels slowly but surely. She imagined the trips between wings would have been much faster once upon a time, but it was going on two hours soon enough, making it a dependable but slow journey.

It was stunning, the will to survive of these people. Instinct had her wondering why they didn't just leave, but Anya had told her already. They'd been left for dead. So they simply refused to die.

Clarke took solace in that, at the very least.

"So how long are we going to be over in B-wing?" Clarke asked, deciding to break the silence now that they were approaching their destination.

"Shouldn't be long. Ten minute walk to a bar, so maybe a twenty-five minute round trip. Girl and her step-brother have been stowed away under it for a few years, I guess. He owns it, passed down to him when their mom died, so...should be a safe enough place. Keep your eyes and ears open on the way up. Look for anything that might be useful if trouble comes knocking. Keep tabs on anyone the least bit suspicious. Don't walk with purpose, but don't make yourself out to be an easy mark, either. We don't need the attention, and we can't afford to lose anything or anyone." Anya relayed quickly, eyes still on the HUD that showed their position, three minutes out.

"You expect a brother and sister to only need five minutes to say goodbye?" Monty asked, a fair question. Knowing Anya the answer was a firm 'yes'.

"They've had over two hours to say their farewells, plus the ten minutes we need to get there, plus the five we need to secure her and plan our route back." Anya said with an air of annoyance.

"Incredible compassion you have there." Clarke shot back with a roll of her eyes, her prediction on mark.

As if two family members could just potentially part forever and be entirely good with a few hours of farewells. Sure, she didn't have siblings, and her relationship with her parents could be strained at times, but she loved them. If she was faced with maybe never seeing one of them again, she'd be crushed.

"She doesn't care _less_..." Lincoln started, only for Anya to break focus on the HUD and glare at him.

"I can speak for myself." The woman sniped, though Lincoln continued as if she hadn't said anything.

"...she's just got a different perspective. We're used to short goodbyes, understanding that life can be taken in an instant, constantly watching people go and wondering if we'll see them again. For you two, it's different. We don't lack compassion, we just want to get the girl to safety, and keep her safe so that she can survive to see her brother again. That's the goal." Lincoln continued, the soft-spoken man providing a bit of much-needed insight even as Anya looked to be seething.

"That's the _mission_." Anya grunted, earning a heavy pat on the back from the former soldier.

"Just be patient with her. You're from different worlds. This one's not yours, so trust her. Like she said, she refuses to lose any of us...that includes the two of you, in case you ever wonder." Lincoln added with a warm smile that had Clarke's frustration dissipating a bit, especially when it was kind of funny how miffed Anya looked at the moment.

The pilot strode forward and learned up against a guardrail, staring out at the passing scenery. " _God_ , why are you choosing _now_ of all times to actually talk? You're supposed to be the strong and silent one, do I have to do _everything_ myself?"

Lincoln just laughed, Monty chiming in soon after, before the whole car aside from Anya was laughing. It was good to break the serious mood for the first time in a while, and it proved that teasing Anya wouldn't always have her suffering some sort of backlash.

At least, perhaps not immediately.

Eventually, their trip came to an end, the rail car stopping and opening its doors to a slightly wider hallway populated by a few people waiting for the car. They stepped out, squeezing past those who wanted in, and in less than thirty seconds, that car was off, back to A-wing again.

Once they left the tunnel and emerged into a larger common area, she could see that B-wing was a ways less populated than A-wing, which at least meant less people stumbling into her as they made their way through the crowds.

After a while, Clarke was pretty sure she could see the bar off in the distance, and was just stretching her body a bit to see over the crowds when she felt an arm wrap around her shoulders and a nose tickle her cheek.

Anya's arm and nose, in specific, which immediately had her feeling like she was standing on a knife's edge, adrenaline coursing through her body like a river.

"Man, black hair, six foot two, blue jacket with the red patch on his right shoulder, yellow wrist-band." Anya whispered happily into her ear, punctuating the series of descriptors with a laugh that sent a tingle down her spine. "Another man. Blonde, five ten-ish, oil streaks on his face. Green pants. Both using some sort of tap code to communicate. Both following us since we entered the atrium. Don't look."

Clarke's first reaction was to swivel her head, but Anya's hand was suddenly there, cupping her cheek, the woman laughing at her like she'd been told a funny joke. "You're ridiculous!"

She let out a huff, but continued on, wrapping an arm around Anya's waist and pressing close to her. If she couldn't look, she needed to know the plan. "Two of them, four of us. That's good, right?"

"They're probably scouts, sending their coordinates and our heading to others. Good chance we're in for a larger group, so we need to make this transfer quick, because the moment we slip into the bar, they'll have their people hauling ass to cut off our exit." Anya explained in a disturbingly warm tone, though she couldn't exactly blame the woman for not being able to act like she's happy and talk like her usual serious self.

"Do we know who or what they're after?" Clarke asked, earning more laughter as Anya shook her head.

"Not a clue. I know we're all out of our Navy gear, but maybe word got out to look for us, that we're Navy. I hope that's it, and people are just looking after their own asses, but...this doesn't look good. Just stick close." Anya answered, the arm around her shoulder giving a slight squeeze that had her wondering if it was in character, or actually a freely given comforting gesture from the thorny pilot.

She didn't have much time to think as she was ushered into the bar and over to the side of the bar cut off from sight-lines from outside. "Lincoln?" Anya asked, arm leaving Clarke's shoulder, making her feel uncomfortably lighter. "You saw the two, right?"

"Red patch and green pants? Yeah. They were on their comms with someone else." Lincoln added hurriedly as Anya waved over a tall dark haired man.

"Get your sister, we're leaving _now_." Anya called out to him before turning back to Lincoln and mimicking a series of beeps to him. The soldiers face twisted in confusion before clearing a few seconds later.

"That's Army shorthand code. Part of that was them calling in what I figure are reinforcements. If they're using something like that, they're probably one of the Navies, maybe the ones that attacked the Polaris, or else they'd be using some of the codes we're taught in the Navy." Lincoln clarified, shifting his gaze to the door. "We're running out of time."

Clarke watched Anya pace for a few moments before a girl emerged from the back room, slinging a backpack onto her shoulders. "We have to leave now, Octavia, I'm sorry." Anya yelled out, prompting the girl to quickly hug her brother.

Clarke looked at her datapad, flicking through a screen or two before settling on the rail car schedule. "Another rail car's arriving in nine minutes. One after that is ten minutes later. We need to get on that first one."

"So we _run_. Let's move!" Anya let out quickly, following Lincoln out the door, Clarke hanging back slightly with Monty to usher their cargo out of the bar. Honestly, she'd expected more tears, but the younger woman's eyes were only glassy. Maybe Lincoln was right, that she'd been through this sort of thing enough times to understand it.

It was one thing to weave their way through the crowd knowing there were people watching them, reporting on them. It was an entirely different experience rushing through the crowds knowing others were chasing them. The one phrase that kept repeating in her mind was _'I didn't sign up for this'_ , but it was too late to take any of it back as they bulled their way down the halls towards the station entrance in the atrium.

"You don't want to be here. Things are probably going to get violent." Lincoln called out to the pair of people waiting for the next rail car once they stepped into the tunnel.

"Fucking station's going to hell, I swear to god..." One of the muttered angrily as they rushed past them and out the doors. Clarke checked her datapad and then pocketed it.

Four minutes until arrival.

"Monty, stay back near the platform with Octavia. Shoot if you absolutely have to." Clarke called out, earning a firm nod even as their new guest struggled in his arms.

"I can fight!" Octavia yelled out, only for Anya to whip around and get in her face.

"Indra tasked me with keeping you safe. You look like you could throw a mean punch but we both know Indra would drag us to hell and back if anything happened to you, so you're going to stay back with Monty. You can fight another time." Anya grit out, staring hard at the girl until she eventually relented, body relaxing as she gave a short reluctant nod. The pilot shifted her focus to Monty. "Those doors open, you get her in there and you let us worry about that half minute window to departure. You get her to the ship, and you don't look back until you're clear."

Monty let out a heavy sigh, shooting a glance at Clarke before nodding. "Yeah, alright. I can do that."

"Okay, so what we need to..." Lincoln started, words dying in his throat as a group of five entered from the atrium, all of them carrying stun batons. The soldier let out a huff, Clarke watching him palm a grenade. "We need to level the playing field."

Lincoln snapped out his hand from his side, the grenade tearing through the space between the groups and exploding in the midst on the newcomers in a flash of light and crackle of electricity, sending the five intruders tumbling to the ground from the minor blast.

Clarke was thankful he'd been mindful to carry an EMP grenade with him, knowing five against three with stun weapons against them would make it a quick fight. The five were armored to an extent, but having a gun couldn't hurt her chances in debilitating them.

She pulled hers from her holster and fired off three rounds at the group as Lincoln pulled out his sidearm and Anya waited with a knife in hand, the three of them forming a pseudo wall in front of Monty and Octavia.

The five recovered quickly, and Clarke only managed two more shots, one sailing into the soft tissue of an attacker's shoulder, before one of them was on her, forcing her to leap backwards to avoid the swing of his inactive stun rod. Even if it couldn't stun, it was thick steel, and could easily crack her skull.

From there it was a rush of limbs and steel and bodies colliding with flesh and metal. Clarke had never had extensive combat training, but it was clear that the group fighting them weren't exactly an elite combat unit either. Likely a group of locals with equipment, maybe who had security or law enforcement experience, but nothing military, given how Lincoln was throwing two of them around.

Clarke was just sidestepping a punch from one of their attackers when the chime for the rail car sounded. Her feet froze in place, head swiveling on instinct to make sure Monty and Octavia would make it. Whatever hit her in the head, she didn't see it coming, only the ground rising up quickly and slamming into her face as she fell.

Eyes bleary, vision hazy, she saw a bright flash, heard a muffled explosion, and watched Lincoln and Anya rush into the rail car to join Monty and Octavia. Her head was pounding, and all she knew was that she was supposed to be with them, but she couldn't get her body to move. She heard Monty call out for her.

Her eyes fluttered shut as someone pushed their way back out of the rail car just as the doors were closing.

Clarke focused on her breathing, checking her fingers and toes first as soon as she was able, trying to drown out all the noise surrounding her. It was all so loud, why couldn't people just be quiet for a few seconds? Why did her head have to hurt so badly?

Once she was sure she was still alive and not paralyzed, she slowly rolled onto her stomach and worked her way to her knees.

A bad plan, apparently, as she was tugged up to her feet, a thick arm wrapping around her neck. Her old instructor used to call it something specific, but all Clarke knew was that she was being dragged away and couldn't breathe, eyes bulging open at the strain.

Just in time to see Anya tackle them up against the wall.

As soon as the arm around her neck slackened from the impact, Clarke ducked out of it and scrambled away, reaching for her gun that was no longer there. Instead, she found one of the deactivated batons beside a bloodied corpse.

The shock of seeing the pool of blood had her reeling, turning away quickly. Too quickly, with the pain that shot through her skull at the movement, though it didn't hurt enough to hear the doors from the atrium open again.

"There she is! Get her!" She heard a thin voice call out, Clarke turning her head slower and finding two more rushing towards her. She took hold of the baton and moved to her knees, ready to swing, but watched the two come to a halt a few feet away, taking up defensive posture.

"If you leave...I won't come after you..." Anya ground out between heavy inhales, gait a little staggered as she stepped in front of Clarke, bloody knife in hand. "Consider that a gift."

"Boss is paying too much for us to bring her back alive." One of them noted hesitantly, not appearing to like their options at all. "Fuck it, I need to get off this rock!"

The man pulled out a wrench, and suddenly the two were rushing Anya. Clarke lunged forward as much as she could, just managing to catch the woman in the ankle with a swing of her baton, buckling her for the moment as Anya ducked the man's swing and barreled him into the woman, bull-rushing them against the wall and punctuating it with a head-butt to the man's face.

Anya stabbed forward with her knife, stumbling forward a bit as he threw himself to the side, letting the woman take the full force of the stabbing in her gut. The woman held firm at Anya's wrist, whether on instinct or will, holding her in place long enough for the man to come at Anya with the wrench again.

Clarke tried to get to her feet, but the dizziness had her sinking back to a knee immediately, vision blurring as Anya cried out in pain, two bodies falling to the floor in front of her. She took a deep breath and tried to get her bearings, waiting out the moment in fear and agony as she heard Anya struggling in pain a few feet away.

Her eyes opened in time to watch the man rain down another blow of his wrench against Anya's forearms, and she didn't need to be on stims to hear the crunch of bone.

Clarke worked to her feet and rushed forward, tackling him off of Anya's prone body, but he used her momentum and threw her like a ragdoll, sending Clarke crashing into the wall as he worked back to his feet.

She lifted her arms as she tried to stand, tried to get her legs to function beneath her, needing to defend herself. The man marched towards her and abruptly stopped a foot away, agony stretching across his face as he arched backwards. Anya pulled her knife from the man's back and pushed him against the wall, plunging her weapon into him repeatedly, until he stopped struggling and slumped down to the floor, lifeless, her pilot sinking down with him.

Just like the other six of their attackers, as she looked around the bloody warzone of a tunnel.

Heart thudding in her chest from a jolt of panic, Clarke looked to Anya. Her vision hadn't been tremendously clear, and she knew it still wasn't great, but she'd been too focused on survival to notice that it'd only been Anya who'd left the rail car.

Anya who looked like death warmed over, absolutely soaked from head to toe in blood, breathing rapidly on her hands and knees.

"Anya..." Clarke croaked out, visibly startling the other woman. Anya reared up slightly, scuttling over towards her on her knees, letting Clarke see the full extent of the damage.

Her pilot's left eye was completely swollen shut and her nose looked broken. The way Anya winced every time she put weight on her right leg told her something was busted up there. The shallow breaths told her some ribs were probably damaged, making it too sore to breathe heavily. The way Anya's hands shook, and how the securigel on knife's handle was still barely keeping it in the woman's loose grip, told her there was probably a lot of damage there, too.

"You okay?" Anya asked, voice shaking from clear pain as one of those bloody hands lifted up and cupped her cheek, Anya's lone good eye scanning her over intently.

It was all a bit too much, too unexpected, too scary, but she found herself smiling with the relief that it was over, at least for the moment. "Concussed, but okay, yeah."

Anya's eyes fell shut as she let out a sigh that Clarke couldn't quite figure out if it was relieved or sad. Still, she was in better shape than the pilot, so she slowly got to her feet and carefully helped Anya up, trying and failing to avoid any tender areas or serious injuries.

It was a slow trek down the tunnel to the rail car platform, Clarke grabbing up her discarded pistol along the way, but they eventually made it, leaning up against the wall, waiting for the next one to arrive. Clarke hoped that the other trio was faring better. It was a long ride back to A-wing, she knew it'd be a longer trek back to the ship with Anya in the condition she was in.

"When we...when we get back to the ship..." Anya noted, breaking the silence after a few minutes of mutual resting. "You have to dump me in the med bay and get the deal done with Niylah. Take Lincoln and Monty. Take this..."

Clarke watched Anya try to remove some wrist-mounted device and instead just gently brushed aside the woman's hand and did it herself. "The holo device she wanted you to use?"

"Networked with one of the big security firms here. Good friend...running it these days. Will get you in to see her. She's...good people. Won't let you down." Anya continued, oddly not objecting to how Clarke had halfway manhandled her arm to get hold of the device. Apparently Anya wasn't up to defending her pride at the moment.

"I appreciate that, but we're hours away from having to be in that situation, so just take it easy. You...you're really hurt, Anya. Why did you come back for me?" Clarke asked, stumbling over her words a bit as she glanced at the woman beside her.

"Told you. Not losing anyone today." Anya spoke slowly, letting out a shallow sigh. "'Sides, they wanted you. Don't know why. Can't let that happen."

Clarke let out a laugh. "Why? I'm sure it'd make life easier for you."

Anya was quiet for a bit, eyes closed and breathing a little slower, more deliberately. "I'm no monster, Clarke. You're safe with us. You were a bad student...spoiled rich and entitled...but a damn good medic. And you _care_. So I may not particularly like you. But I don't hate you. And even if I did...I wouldn't put an easier life for me...above your potential murder. I'm not a monster." Anya repeated, staring down at her trembling gore-coated hands. "I'm not a monster."

Clarke looked down the tunnel at the carnage and tried to reconcile the monstrous display with the woman beside her, how Anya's shaking voice all but pleaded for her not to define the pilot by it. Anya had spoken at great length about the differences in their lives, in their upbringing, in their experiences. She had spoken with a firm sort of compassion about it, and that made it harder for her to just go by the image of her that Clarke had stereotyped Anya through in the academy.

For all the negative experiences, all the bitchiness, all the snark and anger thrown her way, Anya had risked her life for her. Anya had cupped her cheek and fearfully scanned her for injuries. And now there she was, bleeding, fractured, and acting as if Clarke thinking she was monstrous would literally break her.

Suddenly, that cold dismissal in the cockpit from hours ago was cast in a different light. That maybe after Anya had opened up to her, after Anya had worked so hard to keep them safe, maybe she cared what Clarke thought of her. _Did I...did I hurt her?_ She wondered, staring wide eyed at Anya, whose trembling had seeped up from her hands all the way to her shoulders.

"No, you're not a monster, Anya. You were just trying to survive." Clarke noted softly, wanting to squeeze her hand, but she wasn't sure the woman's digits weren't completely fractured as well.

There was some relief in Anya's eyes at that, when they opened again, but a level of resignation that had Clarke wondering if maybe Anya and those like her didn't deserve so much more than just survival.

The approaching of the rail car grabbed their attention, the doors to the car opening, revealing a handful of passengers that went from calm to screaming the moment that the doors opened.

Clarke just ignored them as the crowd ran down the tunnel, focusing instead on helping Anya into the car and sitting them down in front of the doors, looking on down the tunnel. They'd no sooner sat down than the doors from the atrium opened, and Clarke wasn't so concussed that she couldn't recognize a familiar face.

"Major Byrne?" She wondered openly, unsure what the heck Wells' father's right-hand woman was doing on Eunomia. Or, as the woman ran closer, why she looked so mad.

"Clarke...Clarke, you need to shoot her!" Anya grit out, trying and failing to raise her arm and ready her knife.

It sounded absurd, but she knew Major Byrne. She was friendly with Major Byrne. However, when she raised her pistol and aimed it at the charging woman, and she didn't even flinch or hesitate, Clarke felt fear ripple through her.

And when the first shot exploded into the woman's shoulder, and it only slowed Major Byrne's pace, sending her stumbling for a few feet with the same cold anger on her face, and the same dead expression in her eyes, without even a hint of pain registering, well, she knew something was wrong. She fired again.

And again. And _again_. Each round slowing the woman for a moment, as if her bullets were slight shoves instead of lethal weaponry. Clarke kept firing. Byrne kept coming.

"The head! Shoot for the head!" Anya yelled, prompting Clarke to adjust her aim as Byrne closed the final feet to the doors. Looking down her sights, Clarke unloaded one final shot, the bullet penetrating just under Byrne's eye, snapping her head back and significantly slowing her, even if it didn't stop the woman.

Byrne staggered closer, reaching out as Clarke's pistol let out an alarm that its minifactured rounds were depleted. Clarke was just standing up to physically defend the doorway when the doors clamped shut, crushing Byrne's forearm and separating her hand from the rest of her body as the rail car took off for A-wing once more.

It took a few seconds for her to register that it was over, that the car was moving, adrenaline pumping through her body, nausea pooling in her gut over what she'd just witnessed. She was vomiting off in the corner waste bin in two seconds flat.

 _I killed someone...I...I killed one of dad's friends!_ She thought, her brain burning with panic and fear as she worked her way back to to Anya and took a seat beside her, taking some comfort that she wasn't alone in this, suddenly getting a glimpse of an understanding at Anya's struggle over her actions defining her.

Shooting Byrne in the face felt abhorrent, monstrous, but they weren't in danger. They had more time. They'd survived. Whatever it was that had happened, they'd survived it.

And god if Clarke didn't tear up imagining a lifetime of this.

The feeling of Anya's arm locking around hers, was a more than curious sensation. The lazy weight of the pilot's body resting against her shoulder immediately stole all of her focus as she shifted her gaze to stare wide eyed at Anya.

"I promise you it doesn't get easier. And...and I'll do what I can to make sure you don't have to learn that firsthand." Anya spoke, words soft and a little slurred, punctuated by a slight sniffle that ensured her attention remained on the pilot.

"Are you _crying_?" The question burst out of her unbidden, and she was literally ready to die given the knife resting on Anya's lap, but the woman just scoffed.

"Crying is a natural response when your body's experienced tremendous injury, Clarke." Anya stated as if it wasn't a well known fact. Of course people cried when they were hurt. She just didn't expect Anya to cry in front of her, or maybe some of that shock really was from dehumanizing the woman for so long as 'the enemy' or 'the cold-hearted bitch'. Anya, it turned out, was neither of those. Or maybe it was just Anya feeling a tremendous amount of pain from her senses being heightened. The mere thought of that being possible nearly had Clarke up and rushing over to the bin to vomit again, hoping it wasn't the case. "And it's important to grieve after something like this. Just because you might be _ready_ and _willing_ to kill...just because it might be the right thing to do at the time...doesn't mean you _want_ to. Most of the dead just wanted better lives. I get that."

Clarke honestly wasn't sure what to do, Anya hugging her arm and grieving beside her. Maybe it was from some bond they'd established in that tunnel together, experiencing that, maybe it was the fact that their emotional wounds were similar in the moment, or maybe it was something else, something new.

When she slipped a hand up to Anya's head and angled it to rest against her shoulder, she decided she didn't need any answer aside from Anya shifting in her seat to adjust to it. Maybe later, in the quiet darkness of a bunk, she'd figure it out.

For now, she'd cry, and grieve, and hope that two hours of healing would prepare them for the rest of their plans.

* * *

 **A/N: Okay, so this was another short-ish chapter, but I decided to split it here and finish up Eunomia next chapter.**

 **We'll get a look into what/how the rest of the crew's doing, and Clarke having to take the main leadership role for the rest of their stint there.**  
 **Didn't edit this much yet, but I didn't catch anything egregious. I'll do another sweep once I have food in my stomach**

 **Anywho, I hope you all have a great weekend, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter :)**


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